Jealousy
by Last of Romance
Summary: The expression on Law's face when he looked at Zoro, just simply looked at him with those thoughtful, interested eyes as though compelled to look nowhere else, seemed strikingly familiar. Sanji could recognize it anywhere. Law looked at Zoro in the same way that he looked at mermaids. As if what they had always represented to Sanji, one swordsman was to another...
1. Chapter 1

AN: This is going to be a story about the aspects of a LawZo relationship as it unfolds from Sanji's perspective. And as such, will go a little bleak in some spots (longing for a kind of relationship he wants and can't have) and humorous in others (sometimes realizing its probably for the better that he doesn't). But it won't have a terrible ending for him, so no fear! ;3; There will be ZoSan (no one can say that Law can't be generous ^.~) as well as minor LawSan. Following canon, post-Punk Hazard and pre-Dressrosa; I like my version of a filler a lot better than Toei's. :D There will be 5 chapters total.

Anyway, if you're expecting monumental amounts of sap, you're barking up the wrong tree (and wrong author, for that matter, haha). If you're expecting some rather visceral angst and romance, riddled with awful toilet humor and filthy sex... well. At the second chapter, this will start getting very mature very, very quickly, and the content is going to stray off into... not-so-vanilla territories (This _is_ Law we're talking about FFS). Enjoy! 

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Roronoa Zoro had to be, beyond a doubt, the most simple and bland person that Sanji could think of. His interests were limited, conversational skills lacking, knowledge non-existent outside of specific expertise, overly predictable, and so short of brain-power that Sanji had speculated for some time that the reason why the man slept so often might have had something to do with being so bored by his own thoughts that they put him to sleep. Eat, train, nap, booze - _The End_.

And irritating as hell, to boot, with his shitty attitude problems, swaggering confidence all over-the-top - almost egotistical, and unjustified, as if his dick were bigger than the Sunny's mast itself but damned if he could back up any of that cockiness (and/or cock) outside of a battle. All he was good for, really. World's greatest swordsman? Fine, he could see it. The ambition was without question, the possibility was doubtless... but Sanji chalked up the goal as another reason why Zoro was so unlikeable, his dream just as fuck-all dull and simple-minded as the rest of him. Life had so many riches to offer and so many experiences and so many flavors and sounds and colors (Zoro felt/smelled/tasted/heard and probably shit in green, insofar that the monochromatics were likely white-green and black-green with grey-green in-betweens).

Didn't ponder the meaning of the universe for a moment, had no grasp of philosophy; didn't wonder why or how or what existence meant, or what meaning life and love gave - didn't love, for that matter. How does someone _not_ love? - Sanji cared all of five seconds before he wondered why he was wondering at that and wasting precious time that he could have spent deliberating upon his own sweet-dreamings. Love, and...

All Blue, it was.

The chef's own dream first and foremost, yes, but there was more to it than the easy-explanation given to keep others from probing too deep into Sanji's psyche. If it were only about fish alone, Sanji could sail all seas and toss every catch possible into the aquarium and have the same result. Convenient that they all be in one place, of a certainty, but All Blue wasn't unlike other myths, the true glory of it found in its story.

If Sanji could find it, it wouldn't be the end of his journey, but a second beginning upon a stretch of ocean that gave all that any ocean could give and more. A new chapter that brought about a new field of dreams, only more colorful, more wonderful - lustrous, bright and full. Meaningful kinds of new dreams that simpletons like Zoro couldn't ever understand. Because All Blue was a fairy tale like any other, complex beyond a simple legend. And in the variating storybooks inside of Sanji's dreams, he alternated in his role between the prince of happily-ever-after's and the poison with a million Sleeping Beauty's to put to bed.

And yet...

And yet, somehow, suddenly, shockingly, that man less-than-mysterious that he thought he knew the in's and out's of better than his own self for so much lack of substance (couldn't fall under the _like the back of my hand_ comparison as his had a lot more finer lines than Zoro's brain, surely), Sanji fell into him, for him, against him harder than a tidal wave breaking against the shimmering rocks of the Red Line. World's colliding like suns expanding over galaxy's and pulling planets into spiraling crash-courses in its gravitational pull, burning up even as they exploded in impact.

Because there was so much more to Roronoa Zoro than Sanji had ever known. _A lot more_. And he thought he'd understood so well and had him so figured out that once Sanji began to notice the deep, soft, secret underbelly of his inner workings, his mind completely reeled with this new information and what the fuck it all meant. Hell may or may not have frozen over, but he wasn't swayed. Zoro had... this perceptiveness, and sensitivity put to use only where it truly counted that made it more infinitely more meaningful. And an aggravating certainty in the way he went about things that Sanji lacked - he was decisive in his actions and took their repercussions as they came, without fuss. The man was solid all over, inside and out, polished as an adult after a two year span of distance that made Sanji feel like no more than a child. And that notion... had a strange power over him.

Stupid way to look at it. Stupid that he'd let his guard down so much that he'd let himself become wrapped up in what he saw when he'd bothered to give the man more than the cursory glance his piss and vinegar disposition had previously merited.

At some small consolation, at least if he had to find an obsession to rival that of Nami, at least it came with an equally nice set of tits. _Heh_. Pectorals? Whatever, at least he could still attach a chest to it and goddammit, shit like that _mattered_. So he thought. And thought. And thought on and on until he had to stop himself from thinking because whatever he _thought_ was what Zoro would automatically _know_ , and he wasn't sure if that additional thought was infuriating or enthralling. He acted the former, felt more of the latter, but then it didn't matter because Zoro would ultimate see through him and make sense of what he never could himself (as if Sanji himself were that black and white - or green).

The realization had been a slow one to make, however. All exacerbated by a man named Trafalgar Law.

Before they'd ventured into the new world, he had never really crossed his mind - a pirate captain like any other pirate captain (who wasn't their own pirate captain, atypical as he was), men of his ilk were never in short supply. As he could recall from the first days on Sabaody when he'd given the man the most cursory of glances more than two years back, his reputation had already been one to be contended. Though his initial thoughts might have given him a care only as to wonder if the man was going to be a problem. And by problem, he really meant nuisance.

But that was never the case, and he had purportedly saved Luffy's life, which was worth the weight of all of their dreams combined but he left his gratitude unsaid as the moment - to understate - was long expired when they came across him again. Even then, something about Law's demeanor had him under the impression that he wouldn't appreciate anything of the sort. When assumptions and guessture was all there was to be had, it was nice to not be wrong in them and this had been no different.

For the most part, it was still difficult for Sanji to put his finger on what it was about this man in particular - toiling his mind more than usual to unravel him with his eyes and discern his wants and motivations and whatever force that drove such an atypical man to take to the sea, let alone The Grand Line. But appearances, they could be so deceiving. And this one - a doctor, a swordsman, and a pirate captain in one - didn't appear as any of those things, outwardly. More the type found lingering in the dark corners of some upscale bar, a mysterious stranger nursing two fingers of whiskey, neat, whilst demurring away from inevitable attentions and/or propositions. Or perhaps some damp, lofty, timeless and elegant library, thumbing through obscure medical volumes in the way that a certain archaeologist was wont to do with molded-over codex. Or somewhere in-between those two places, alternating in highs and lows. He'd proven himself a strong man, and one worthy of the sea, and yet-

And yet...

And yet, the assumptions he sometimes made weren't as difficult to discern as he read into the little subtleties that only the most astute would take notice of - how he carried himself coolly, inhumanly graceful over the ship's threshold wearing the most taciturn expressions. But sometimes could stiffen _just so_ at certain things and words, then never at all if they were presented a somewhat different way. When caught in the whirlwind of his own captain's general what-the-fuckery and pandemonium, all that cool, calm and collected could disappear quickly into something utterly horrified.

But, given a few moments, the mask would be back just as fast as it could slip.

While seeming to have no outward use for what anyone else might have thought of him, Law was clean and well-groomed, his style very casual, yet he seemed to relish a bit of ornamentation. It was there in the piercings, the tattoos, the clean-shaven face around his goatee, and the well-fitting clothes. Noticed, how darkly handsome his face could be and how carefully tailored the expressions he wore - the man obviously knew his own natural gifts. But this appearance seemingly did not matter in the larger scheme of things inasmuch as what Law thought of his own self - no one else really mattered. And there were similarities, familiarities, conclusions that Sanji could make But these were all plain guesses and the man was yet magnificently foreign to him. Like a new island, an undiscovered adventure; there were so many landscapes and so many new things to explore.

That was the way that Sanji was drawn to him, watching this inscrutable mystery biding his time aboard their ship, saying either many words or going eerily silent, but the ones he did choose could stretch heavy with meaning. There was little for the ship's cook to do but pretend that it did not matter at all, pretend he couldn't care much less of whatever poor soul Luffy had dragged along for this next absurd escapade. Pretend he was less than utterly fascinated with the Surgeon of Death, Trafalgar Law.

In another life, he might have been a great actor. But not this one, no.

Pretend, pretend away, _young chef_ , but there were too few things to hide behind on such a small ship. Too few other thoughts to tuck these ones behind until they were forgotten. There were only so many instances where he could distract himself by conjuring up the image of ludicrous breasts bouncing in too-small bikinis before he had to kick it up a notch to the fond recollection of his beloved mermaids in said bikinis, rendering himself near-catatonic in a sagging heap of his fantasies. Blood from his nose, hearts in his eyes, useless and pointless and ridiculous and he knew it, but that was what became of lonely men who'd never known a true lover - someone to call his own, just his own and his only. No such person existed for him, and his heart compensated its emptiness by making itself a stomping ground for pointless pornography.

He tried to keep productive in his kitchen, but his attention span constantly had the better of him. When the oceans of his mind would inevitably cool and the mermaids set off for warmer waters, he couldn't keep himself from looking towards Law, watching the way his shadowy eyes would always focus out on some unseen point off the boundless horizon.

It was relatively quiet and peaceful that day, contrasting what they'd dealt with prior, and Law was sunning himself quietly on the deck, wearing his typical jeans but not much else. With his weight resting against the ship's rail, long legs lackadaisically spread in front of him, his expression was one of equal parts deep thought and mild indifference, lost somewhere else on a distant point that his gaze sought out, yet entirely still there in the present.

One couldn't help but wonder in that moment what it was the man was thinking of, but wouldn't dare to ask. The _not knowing_ of it all is what made it so perfect.

Sanji found himself making a great show of his excuses for slipping out of the galley and onto the deck, refreshing drinks more often and more loudly than was necessary, amongst various tasks. Every time he emerged, he awarded his eyes to let them rest upon and drink in the older man's calm visage. Unto the point where he had eventually failed to watch where the fuck he was going, stumbling with little to no grace into the flailing wall of another person's body. At that precise moment, he had been in the midst of attempting to discard the completely unusable parts of a large fish (not one to _ever_ waste anything) into a bait bucket that Luffy and Usopp had been using for their outlandishly over-sized catches. The result was... unpleasant, to say the least.

Without turning his head, Law looked to him, those unfathomably deep eyes shifting to his peripheral. And he smiled, just the barest touch at the corner of his mouth in a way that made Sanji feel idiotic and transparent all-over, caught as though his crewmate's fishing hooks had flung themselves from the water and attached in his mouth. Some cursing and shouting behind him in the form of a shackled up Caesar suddenly decor'ed with fish-innards only vaguely registered in his mind's sudden tunnel vision, and dismissed him with a wave of his hand and a small ' _Sorr_ y.'

Sanji couldn't have cared less at that moment (or any other moment, really) - his eyes refused to move away from Law - tall, dark, and handsome as he was - and time suddenly felt all so still and sluggish. The epitome of casual, the man looked so at home under the late afternoon sun and the wind as it gently palmed across his dark, shining hair, unfettered from his usual cap, like some fond acknowledgement. As if to say _I know you_ , and _I will always be here with you_.

Feeling a sudden heat prickling at the back of his neck, Sanji's collar felt too stiff and tight that he tugged at the knot of his tie with his free hand and loosed the top button of his shirt. Standing there blankly, dumbly, clutching an empty bowl that bore the remnants of fish blood and bits of scales to his person as he realized that Law's interest had long waned from his direction while he had remained openly staring. As a curious warmth swelled beneath his cheeks and over his ears, he made to retreat back to the galley, somehow out of breath.

He tried to calm himself; he thought of cool rain and wintry islands. He thought of ice cubes and refreshing drinks. He thought of anything except _mermaids_.

Why, he thought... just why ( _does he make me feel so anxious_ )?

"Zoro-ya..."

Through the open door, he could hear the man's soft voice give recognition to an approaching swordsman. Before he could afford the chance to fully regain his better judgement, the cook turned back towards the deck, watching from the galley's shadowed entrance in a rather pathetic attempt at discretion. Law was regarding his new acquaintance as coolly as ever, a secret half-smile kept low under a bowed head as Zoro invaded his personal space and took to leaning his back against the ship's rail beside him.

"That nodachi..." he began, and Law's smile opened up with a hint of white teeth at its edge, his expression lifting pridefully.

"Kikoku," he said, his soft cadence pleasant to the ear. "Do you like it?"

Zoro eyed the large weapon interestedly, almost heatedly, the way that Sanji might have undressed a beautiful woman with his eyes - he thought it all too typical of the man. "Yes."

"Go ahead, then," Law replied simply with a silent and unspoken _I trust you_ somewhere in between the lines. A swordsman recognizing another swordsman's intent, but it was rare to see one so agreeable to let another fondle his weaponry. Sanji wondered at that (he'd never, not ever touched Zoro's swords, let alone thought to ask... not that he would), but dismissed the thought as Law seemingly cared much less, looking away once more, almost serenely, eyes wandering on that invisible point across the ocean.

As Zoro took up man's invitation, Sanji watched on as he seemed to hesitate slightly, trailing a fingertip softly across the grey silk of the sword's _tsuka_ as though it were some sort of slow seduction. An implicative gesture. If the man were feeling a little hot and bothered, he wouldn't have put it past him at all. Simple-minded, single-minded, pointy sticks of sharpened metal and all of the ways to best make things bleed with them governed Zoro's thought processes to the extent that nothing else was there. They could have been his personal version of Sanji's mermaids.

Swords, not women - or men. There was no appreciation in him for true beauty, for sensuality, for _love_. Could never understand the wonderment found in another human being over the things that they themselves wrought with their two hands. Even in their own way that blades could be beautiful, that beauty was dependent entirely upon the movements of the body that wielded them and all of the ways that they could think to manipulate them. The placement of weight, the turn of wrists and hips, the level of power behind every swing and every thrust were only designs of the body that commanded each motion. A body like Law's, perhaps. Quick and lithe and graceful, powerful tendons guiding his movements from large to subtle-

 _Zing!_

The sword sung from its sheathe a scant milometer above Law's head, sure and precise in Zoro's two-handed grip in a movement so quick that Sanji felt his heart skip in startle from his reverie. The power in Zoro's usual draw, withheld. The shimmering waves of the ocean rippled off for miles from his trajectory as though he'd merely sent the most perfect little skipping-stone spinning across its face. It was atypical to his favored concussive force, such a modest amount of power... or had that been a purposeful display of his tremendous control? Whichever was cockier was the truth and it had Sanji mentally eye-rolling, while Law looked neither over, nor under, nor any definition of _whelmed_. Palm-up, his hand lifted to catch the tiniest amount of blue-black fuzz that Zoro had shaved off the top of his hair and watched as it floated listlessly off into the breeze.

"I'm glad that you approve," was all he had to say, dusting his hand off on his jeans. With a hum of agreement in the back of his throat, Zoro returned the sword to its sheathe and settled it back beside its master before he, too, slid down to sit alongside the man. But not before loosing his three katana from his hip and rest them at his own side.

"It's not bad."

Law cocked a slender brow towards him, amused, but said nothing at all.

From then on, they sat still and silent in some sort of understanding that had to be a thing exclusive only to swordsmen of their caliber, speaking in low voices with as few words exchanged as possible. Recognizing hidden meanings in-between the lines of everything unsaid, speaking in the language of eyes and body, reading tensions or lack thereof in the air like some long-winded discourse had taken place when to Sanji's fixated ears and eyes, there was nothing of interest to be had there anymore.

And it was vexing in a way, that Law understood what fell upon Sanji's ears as a lot of muscle-headed, inarticulate idiot-speak akin to, ' _Sword good. Me cut. Me like cut with sword_.' But he refuted the thought that he and Zoro could have much more in common than that; just because a man understood a common language didn't necessarily equal being native to it. He knew better. Law was a man of intellect, after all. And Zoro was just dumb.

Receding from his hiding place and back into the kitchen, Sanji rolled up his shirt-sleeves to set about preparing their evening meal. Steadier now in the place that he could truly, finally thrive (though he could easily pin the blame of his earlier misstep to the heat of the sun - which, he did), he began to work his magic, his sleight of hand, beautifully filleting fish to be laid in decorously-cut sheets of parchment.

His confidence was renewed - lost in the throes of his skill, his lifeblood, preparing not mere sustenance, but a science and art in one with the love of his craft tucked into its flavors, be they fragile or robust. Not as a mere cook, but a chef; a _culinarian_ ; the blood and sweat and tears he'd paid for his talent over the years were the ever-growing seasonings of his capability. In half the time that it would take a man referred to as a 'great', Sanji had prepared his dish for the oven (with an extra ten servings of fish for the ship's captain) with minced shallot, green peas, chopped mushrooms (held for Usopp's share) with a light tarragon sauce. A dish of braised leeks and a basket of warmed, buttery fantail rolls adorned the table just as the internal timer in his head went off for the entrée.

"Nami-swan! Robin-chwan!" He blithely sashayed from the galley, "Law-kun!" He mentally stuttered - _What the actual fuck, Sanji? Law-kun... Seriously?_ \- one of these things... was definitely not like the others. He badly needed to ditch his sudden hang-up with the pirate doctor - and why ( _can't I stop thinking about him_ )? - before it got the better of him and/or wrecked his self-image as a ladies man, but some things were easier thought than done.

Regardless...

"Dinner is ready!"

The kitchen was heavenly with aroma and garnered no small amount of compliments from the more polite members of the crew as they filed in, taking each one gracefully as he served them their respective favored drinks. He looked up as Zoro and Law entered together, and though both were withdrawn and quiet, to Sanji's knowledge of at least one of the two swordsman, that he wasn't wearing his common scowl while within his domain was akin to them being linked arm and arm with a skip to his step. Something about Zoro's air altogether troubled his stomach, like some parasite (a green and mossy one, at that) attaching to his intestinal wall and gnawing at his gut, but he dismissed it as trivial... and a bit too commonplace. As whatever it was that had put the shitty moss-head in good mood, he knew that it was going to be something tragically asinine and/or irksome towards Sanji's regard in general that he knew better than to ask.

Not that Zoro ever gave much away. No more than in one-word ogre grunts, anyway.

Everyone seemed pleased, and it pleased him in turn as he picked into his food, glancing up now and then at the ladies and barbarians at the table to make sure they were all well accommodated. Boisterous as usual, loud laughter commingled with random angry shrieks as they resounded the room. Bits of fish flecked in the air as Brook regaled Kin'emon and Momonosuke some silly story of Soul King grandeur with his mouth full, one errant little piece alighting perfectly between Nami's mountainous and heavenly breasts. The navigator balled up a fist that put Luffy's third gear to absolute shame, smiting the skeleton with an unholy amount of fury. With sizable lump protruding from his afro and tilting his crown more askew than before, Brook became unnervingly withdrawn after that.

Luffy himself was incomprehensible, cheeks puffed with food squirreled in as he waved his arms emphatically over at Franky and Usopp over something or other that Sanji would never understand and honestly knew it was better that way. It was, over all, a good night. The ladies were both smiling, Zoro seemed about to fall asleep in the midst of all the cacophony, and Law looked as though he were suffering how this alliance he'd formed was the largest mistake of his pirating career (very likely so, and Sanji could sympathize well on questionable life choices), but he was quiet and his table manners were... adequate enough... if not a little bit too hasty and bored as though eating out of necessity with little to no enjoyment.

He was going to tell himself that he wasn't disappointed, as if that ever worked.

"SANJI!" He looked up from his perch in the kitchen from its partition, daintily chasing a pea across his plate with his fork. "THIS IS GOOD!" Luffy crowed across the room as he shoveled another helping of fish down his gullet.

"Of course it's good, asshole, I made it," he droned out, wondering if he'd left his appetite out on the deck or if Luffy had mistaken it for food and consumed that, too.

When Law finally spoke, Sanji immediately felt light all over as the man complimented, "After being on that island for so long, it's been a while since I've had a well-prepared meal." His elbows were on the table in front of his empty plate but the cook didn't have it in him to complain, a beer mug in one hand while the palm of his other propped the weight of his head just under his jaw. Lazy, indolent... why did he have to look so good?

"You're quite skilled."

Feeling his cheeks warm just a touch, Sanji suddenly had a new understanding and appreciation for their little resident tanuki as the urge nearly overcame him to grin all big and stupid and wriggle about happily, right beside the urge to curse up a storm and go kick the everliving shit out of Law for making him feel so suddenly nervous and embarrassed.

Because, goddammit, _that doesn't make me happy at all, bakayarou!_

Speaking of, Chopper smacked his lips satisfactorily and sighed over his cotton-candy fattened belly. "Sanji's desserts are the best, Law. You should try one!" _Shut up! I don't want your compliments!_

"I bet Momo-kun would love them," Nami( _-swaaan!)_ chimed in, doting upon the little dragon in a way that made Sanji internally swear with certain vehemence that she'd one day be the perfect mother of his many, many... many children, "What's for dessert, Sanji-kun?"

"Mango and rum mousse," he replied, hearts popping into his eyes at the beautiful navigator as he smoothly (so he thought) twinkle-toed from the kitchen to refill her glass.

"SANJI! DESSERT!" Luffy demanded, and those hearts were just as quickly absent as he looked to the captain who had slammed both of his fists on the table, a massive grin stretching up at him.

"Quiet the hell up!" he snapped, expression taking a one-eighty turn to the gnashing of teeth, "Ladies first, bastard!"

The hearts re-emerged with a fiery passion burning in his chest at the sound of a melodious, feminine chuckle, obscured by a pale, delicate hand. ( _Robin-chwaaan!_ ) "That does sound wonderful, cook-san."

"I could use more sake." Those hearts were now gone into the abyss forever as Zoro - the antithesis to his libido - spoke for the first time since dinner had begun.

"Do I look like your fucking maid? Get it yourself, lazy aho-kenshi."

And on and on and on they went and this was his constant in life, pulled back and forth, to and fro, caught in a tug-of-war between happiness and irritability that could be fucking _exhausting_ , yet still satisfying; he loved every moment, if he had to be completely honest (but seldom ever was), in every high and low. Pulling a cigarette out from his jacket's inner-pocket, he lit it and made for the fridge to serve desserts to those who cared for it. And left the remnants of the rum bottle for those who didn't... or those who wanted to have their cake (eg: mousse) and eat it (eg: get drunk) too.

Some, like him, were neither - he wasn't in the mood that night. But eventually the din in the galley died down and the crew retired to varying parts of the ship for the evening, Franky staying behind to help with the dishes with his extendable, tiny hands. Relaxation was once again able to set in - initially, the cyborg proposing that he dry the dishes with a fireball... notwithstanding.

The soft strains of Brook's violin came to the galley through the open door in some tune that Sanji knew enough of to hum along, but could not name. Voices drifted in and out, footsteps here and there, absent of the day's clamor. And night slowly fell upon the ship with a beautifully full moon in the sky, revelling amongst a garland of starlight. The cook helped himself to a large glass of sherry as he laid down the prep-work of a beautiful breakfast for the next coming morning. And eventually the ship went quiet and asleep, save for the sharp-shooter on first watch who'd taken roost up in the library and Zoro, who usually didn't drop off until nearly dawn. Otherwise, all was silent and still.

Soon, as well, Sanji carried himself off to the men's quarters for the night.


	2. Chapter 2

We're treading into darker territory here, but as it is said, "every flower must grow through dirt." ... We're also treading into sexual content, but I've got no cute little adage for that. :D If anyone is interested in any of my writing updates, you can follow or stalk my tumblr under lastofromance.

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The unhappy reality that came with sharing a room with six other men was the lack of privacy - or more often than not, how little a certain few sought out privacy. While Brook, Chopper, and Luffy didn't pose any particular concern, and Franky and Usopp at least knew the meaning of discretion, their resident swordsman displayed just how grossly uncouth he could be at times. That was, with no particular reservation towards being noticed (with no better way that Sanji could think it without internal grimace)... rubbing one out. They were all men, mostly adults, most of them did it, provided they had the right anatomical parts. Or, at the very least, they all understood the necessity.

But it never got un-awkward. The one time he'd caught Usopp having at it, the man was so stricken that he had avoided Sanji for weeks. And when he finally cornered the man, he was so embarrassed and weepy and apologetic about it that it damn near broke Sanji's heart. But Zoro, on the other hand... the first time he had caught Zoro, he'd acted as though a completely normal thing were occurring right over Sanji's head... and the bastard had the gall to _keep fucking going_. Thoroughly and rightfully flustered, which quickly snowballed into _unholy rage_ , his foot shot out against the left side of the upper bunk, knocking it off balance from the rigging, throwing the half-naked swordsman to the floor.

' _What the fuck, cook?'_

 _'Take it to the bathroom like a normal person, shitty pervert.'_

But that hardly was the end. It wasn't shocking to him to learn that a man of so much odd sensibility was a lucid dreamer, an _impetus_ of his late-night (or early morning) affairs in self-indulgence. Sanji could never be so lucky, prone to night-terrors and phantom hunger pangs that could wake the devil.

Regardless, it made more sense as to why he was always napping in two to three hour intervals rather than sleeping through the night like a normal person when he could do whatever the fuck he wanted in his non-waking world, and more sense as to why Sanji had too many mornings come earlier than he'd like. It was a fairly rare occurrence, but still beyond irritating that he ever had to randomly wake up at four in the morning to the sound of a rather heady groan from above his own bed. The bunk shuddering, the swordsman's breath panting, the sound of sheets slithering about in the scents of man-sweat... those nights always necessitated way too many cigarettes. And Zoro was always seemingly far too gone in his own world to notice the click of his lighter, his deep exhalations in the dark with the rising curls of smoke. But if he ever did, he had never have brought it up. It was just how Zoro was.

This was another one of those nights again. Sanji started awake from the depths of some dream, some other place where all around him was a winding maze, a large distant clocktower's hands ticking down to sudden doom that had him running and running and running to dead ends, and ends dead, of long and twisting corridors to find escape. But his time had all run out and he was lost, the ground beneath his feet shuddering and cracking open to swallow him into darkness - down and down, falling into the reality of his actual bed shuddering. Groaning, Sanji's hand palmed at his face and pushed through his blond hair.

Above him, his aggravating bunkmate was being particularly voracious, writhing and tossing against his bed as though he were being taken apart, piece by piece. The angry sound of sheets tearing cut through the snores of men sleeping in the otherwise silence of the men's quarters, followed by a swallowed down gasp amongst harsh little open-mouth pants for breath. There were times, he thought, that perhaps Zoro was a man that never spoke or thought of real love only because he couldn't have had a better fuck in his life than his own self. With no imagination intact to grasp that anything else might be better. But that was just one theory.

Sighing, Sanji's eyes bleared open in the dark, partially annoyed but mostly impressed as his night vision adjusted and Zoro's toes came into his line of sight as they curled over the wooden side of his bed. He seemed more into it than usual, almost as though-

As though he weren't actually alone this time.

There came another voice, the smallest sexy, hothot **h o t** laugh in the dark that was distinctly male but definitely not Zoro. A slightly larger, but elegantly-arched foot touched against Zoro's, a denim-clad ankle sliding against the other man's own all slowly and sensually, the fabric riding up to bare a slender ankle. The air in the room was humid, warm and slithering wet kind of human, and Sanji could barely fucking _breathe_. Nor could the swordsman, if the sound of all those little stutters and hitches were any indication. Nor could his bed-parter, either, as told by the softest of little slurps and suction-pops and deep nasal-exhalations that Sanji would know anywhere for what they were. The kind he dreamt about desperately when alone - those mermaids he adored and what it would be like to feel/hear/see their open-mouth kisses and licks, love flourishing all over the head of his erect cock, watching ruby red lips descend down and up and down and-

But there was no mermaid, nor woman. There was no one else it could be but Law.

Law.  
Law..  
Law...

 _Trafalgar fucking Law_...

\- and up and back down again, a hot and wet and silky mouth, smiling with all of his secrets that he never gave away. Law, tongue dragging back up and pulling those soft noises out of the swordsman with every glide, in every inch. Law, reducing such a capable and stalwart man down to this trembling thing, rocking the bunks as they shook and shook and groaned on their rigging like they just wanted nothing more than to _give the fuck up_ and die.

And Sanji understood how they felt, tossing an arm over his eyes as he lay there in the dark, eavesdropping on a remarkably intimate moment. It was not right. Not at all. The swordsman he knew didn't do these things, didn't have a sex life, let alone a marginal amount of savoir-faire to attract a bed partner, and certainly not one of so much substance. So tall and dark and handsome and intellectually endowed. And he asked himself how the fuck this could have happened, why this was happening, and if this was all some new form of night terror in how ashamed of himself he suddenly was. Not only listening, but envisioning it all - Law's mouth stretched open over a thick erection all saliva-glistening and dripping, and how a calloused hand might tangle and tear through mussed locks of blue-black hair. How embarrassing. How longing for... for. He couldn't finish the thought. Only - how was this real? why was this happening? - he needed a cigarette.

Why Zoro? Why Law? Why here? And why now?

Why ( _was this happening_ )? Why, why, **why?** -

small(Why)?/small

He could ask and ask away and beg to the heavens for answer, but there was no one who was going to answer this silent plea. Only those intermittent, delicious noises coming from above as the man who had Sanji so wrapped up in wanting to know all there was to know of him, lost himself in knowing Zoro in a way he'd never known anyone else to even try.

Why (not me)?

Why (aren't you interested in me)?

smallWhy (am I not good enough)?/small

The bunk stilled suddenly, then gave into a much larger shudder that could have clacked Sanji's teeth had he not fiercely clenched them together. The swordsman groaned above him, full-throated and unrestrained while Law's silkier voice came upon him in another soft laugh resounding in the back of his throat, pleasant, shivering through the cord of Sanji's spine and straight into his very interested dick. Miserably, his eyes clenched tightly shut as he felt a crude release of erratic energy stutter out. Zoro's orgasm was palpable and fucking tangible; that wasn't actually unusual, but this was different, heavier, thicker, _more_ ; a wave of energy that prickled all over his skin, sliding its invisible fingers into his hair and down his thighs, circling his arms, cupping his testicles and drawing them tight. He wanted to cry out, or just cry, or both - he wanted to scream profanities, but could do nothing but lay there like a dead fish, choking back on his own self-doubt.

Was this some sort of sick trade off? Law had allowed Zoro to play with his sword, so now he was... what? Returning the favor? What even-

Sanji just couldn't do this. Couldn't do anything.  
He needed _out of there_.

A hand dusted the floor until it found yesterday's pants, shirt, and vest - cigarettes grabbed off the bedside table as he shoved himself into his clothes as quickly and quietly as possible before he made a stealthy retreat. It was nearly dawn on the door's other side and the sky was deep blue, coloring the room grey as he spared a glance over his shoulder.

Law was shirtless, beltless, an amused tilt to his lips - quiet and relaxed, as unperturbed as an ocean's deepest depth. The man allowed his weight fall back against the wall adjacent to where Zoro was horrifically splayed in his upper bunk like some suicide victim, post-jump and splattered across pavement, _sans_ blood. If it weren't for the glisten of sweat all over his larger torso as it heaved and heaved each tired breath, Sanji almost might have thought twice about what he'd partially witnessed and called it slaughter rather than oral sex. In fact, he had the inkling that a little more had happened between them than what hearing alone suggested. The man was a fucking trainwreck, and Law seemed pleased as punch with how thoroughly he had caused that derailment.

The rest of the male crewmates in the quarters were still asleep and blissfully unaware - he truly envied them. Shutting the door on them all, he lit a cigarette and palmed at the tent in his pants to adjust it into a more comfortable position, stumbling barefoot to the ship's railing when he'd meant to leave to the galley. He inhaled so deeply that it burned. Exhaling little broken shapes of hearts, each one more strained than the last as if air didn't want to properly leave him. It didn't matter. He continued on in puffing his cigarette like it had all of life's answers, his fingers curling their nails into his palms and shaking and biting.

God _damn_ it! How _stupid_ he felt!

And sick. And ashamed. But it wasn't his fault; there was no way he could have had the foresight to see that coming. He shook his head to himself, blond hair wisping to and fro across his forehead and clamming to his skin, swept back with a shaking hand. When he'd sunk into bed the night before, the shichibukai had been peaceful out the deck, breathing deeply in slumber beneath the shadowy brim of his endearingly odd cap. Nothing spoke of what was going to happen, no tension in the air beyond that slight eeriness that overtook the part of the crew that couldn't hide their distrust towards Law. And Sanji had not been among them; he had been...

 _Attracted_. An admittance he didn't want to make. But it was there, regardless.

Akin to a moth to a flame, but that flame had turned out to be a rather unfortunate bug-zapper in its stead. And there he was, before he could even think to decide what he even wanted from Law, if anything at all, plummeting down to the ground uselessly. His thoughts had been shapelessly wrapped up in the other man, whose thoughts had apparently extended beyond him entirely and to someone else - someone... a rival. His rival. And he was left feeling so _disgusted_ and wrong; he thought of how much he had wanted to be in Law's favor and just know him, against how Zoro had tried at nothing at all and won effortlessly. What an ugly feeling that was, jealousy.

Pure jealousy.

Exhaling his last smoke-shape of a heart split into two, he discarded his spent cigarette to the ocean and took to watching it be as drowned as he felt. For all he hadn't known, his mind was as vast and empty as the scene before him. But the ocean didn't care when he cared far too much; the ocean was strong and couldn't be kept. A lot of things seemed that way. He turned to the galley, the only place his head would clear, and decided to attempt at going over his day's menu before starting on breakfast. It did no good to stand idly with too many presumptions over what he had witnessed. Hurt was his only non-presumption -

He was in the thick of it. As though caught under the sea, wandering a dark forest, one rock more that lay in a riverbed, eroding away by the years of loneliness and made common and indistinct and unnoticed. Allowing not the gifts of his life to define him, but the hurt of the ones never given.

' _Stop_ ', he told himself, because dwelling was one-hundred-and-one kinds of a bad idea.

But still - smallwhy (am I not loved)?/small

His questions, his _feelings_ had no answer and he was left stumbling, reeling with yet another blow like the proverbial straw breaking a camel's back - he'd admired so many, many pretty faces and suffered so much rejection, but _never_ had he thought one of them would share a bed with a crewmate over himself. _Never_ another man. And _Never_ Zoro. And so he stumbled, mentally fumbled, searching for an answer to all of his _whys_ that didn't exist, and he felt so alone and lost. So many pick up lines and compliments. Where did they ever lead? _Not on my life_ , or _Get away from me_ , or the kinder _You're just not my type_ , or-

(Or you're just not good enough).

' _Dammit, Sanji, I said_ _ **stop**_ ', he mentally admonished.

He had to bottle himself up because it was all he could really do, the only defense he had. Eventually wondering, as the morning rose like a tidal wave and receded just the same, why this mattered so goddamn much. _This_ meaning _Zoro_ , because he thought he'd known everything about him. As well as _this_ , meaning _Law_ , because he barely knew the man at all. He liked him, it was true - he was drawn to him, it was true - he'd been turned away too many times, lost this latest crush to someone who could truly define it to him as a 'loss', and that also was all true, true, true. Bottle it up (for now); the only new equation that factored into this yet-another-defeat of heart was Zoro, but that should not have _mattered_.

But it did.

It still did, and when every instinct he had told him to run away, run away and hide, there was nothing in his life that he'd _ever_ cowered away from and this wasn't about to be the place where he would begin. Not that there was even a place for that. If he could not escape this knowledge, he would hold it in and clutch it tight and no one had to be the wiser to how he really felt, deep down. Somewhere, still, lying in bed listening to the depth of Zoro's pleasure-filled groans resounding in the dark.

 _Stop_ , he said. And his heart did the wise thing finally, for once, and _listened_.

The day continued and Sanji couldn't help but watch the two of them. And the more he saw of their interactions, it became so clear, crystal clear, even when they seemed to not be interacting at all - it was stupid, how see-through they both were in their mutual attraction that he'd wondered how he'd missed it before, or if context had flipped everything on its head. Honestly, they were more than a little transparent. Though Law was so much the better of them at hiding. Perhaps with age came experience, or perhaps discretion was just an integral part of who the man was. But as subtle as with all of his other mannerisms, one only had to know what they were looking for to see the truth beneath his calm exterior. And Sanji was becoming ever the expert in this.

Zoro, on the other hand, was almost open with rough affection when he thought no one else was looking; or maybe he cared little that it was Sanji - one could never tell. But it revealed more about him than he'd ever thought actually existed. A side of Zoro that was him in body and name, but not in Sanji's knowledge of a dull, simple-minded swordsman or white-green/black-green monochromatics and lack of substance. He saw this: a man of animal grace, body movements slightly different than before, languid, sexual, a darkly flirtacious gleam to his eye. He saw him shove Law's white and black cap away from his head to run his fingers indecorously through sexily-tousled hair. He saw how the older man's elbow prodded back against his ribcage admonishingly in reply, obvious that he disliked that sort of attention but allowed it, anyway, because it seemed to make Zoro happy. And when one swordsman softly smiled over it, the other answered helplessly with one of his own.

Another small moment - small, but meaningful - came later in the day while Sanji was busy grilling out on the deck. As was the norm, Zoro came down from the training room as he was often between there and retrieving fresh water from the galley to rehydrate when Law allowed his cool facade to slip, his eyes salaciously admiring the man's toned upper body as he passed by. Sanji watched as their eyes locked and Zoro's mouth pressed into a hard, unfriendly twist, but the expression was half-hearted and largely indulgent. Faux exasperation. 'Fuck off', he mouthed, smirking as he walked on and the shichibukai gave an implicative, slick raise of a brow towards his ample rear view.

And Sanji _shivered_.

Because the expression on Law's face when he looked at Zoro, just simply looked at him with those thoughtful, interested eyes as though compelled to look nowhere else, seemed strikingly familiar.

He could recognize it anywhere.

Law looked at Zoro in the same way that he looked at mermaids. As if what they had always represented to Sanji, one swordsman was to another.

Lost in that realization, he started at the sound of his name, or rather, Law's way of addressing him by epithet, ' _Kuroashi-ya_ '. There wasn't any reason for it, but he felt his hackles raise. "Hm?" which translated in Sanji-speak to ' _Can I help you?_ ' He glared up from pressing char-lines into the meat on the grill, giving his vegetable skewers a turn.

"Do either you or Nose-ya have a shaving kit I might borrow?" He asked, thumbing along a shadow of dark stubble at the side of his jaw. It looked good on him. Not Sanji's thing, but on Law, with that rugged and untamed edge, he could be _anyone's_ thing. "I may have packed too lightly."

...Too lightly? Heh. That was quite the understatement. The man had the clothes on his back and his large-ass sword. If he didn't insist on being so goddamn tall, Sanji might have allowed him to make use of his extensive wardrobe... but that size difference might have been a good thing for the sake of his dying self-esteem. Law would have looked way too good in a nice suit. For a man, his legs were disproportionately long; they were of a similar build, and whether or not it was actually true, Sanji felt that Law carried himself a little better, with a confidence that wasn't ever fluffed up or exaggerated.

Regardless... "Go ahead; I'd avoid using anything of Usopp's. The weird contraption he uses is a fucking accident waiting to happen." The shit he and Franky came up with never failed to amaze. "Just check my locker. Everything should be in a black bag, can't miss it. If you wanted to shower too, I'd recommend waiting a while. I saw Franky go up not that long ago and... you don't want to share. You just don't."

Because the guy relished in his bubble baths, but not by way of fucking soap.

Law wrinkled his nose in distaste and gathered himself to his feet. "Thanks for the tip."

"Lunch is almost ready, by the way," Sanji informed his retreating back.

It took about 15 minutes to finish, and by that point, not much in the way of gathering the crew was needed as they were attracted by the smell of cooked meat and the perfect amount spices. It took all of Sanji's capability to keep their captain from drooling all over the grill, but he managed... somehow... and lunch began in its usual, chaotic, spectacular way. If it had been less beautiful of an afternoon, if the girls had chosen something a little more modest to wear, it might not have taken half way through lunch for him to notice that Zoro had not yet come out to eat - and less, that Law was absent as well. But then he himself hadn't actually noticed at all.

"Is Zoro not hungry?" Robin asked between her delicate mouthfuls, "Come to think of it, I have not seen Torao-kun in a while, either. Perhaps they both fell overboard and into the sea. I hope they have not been pulled down by the currents and drowned to death." Sanji knew it was his imagination that the air had become still and quiet, like one of those moments when he was about to turn around and find some horrible monster behind him rather than a stunningly beautiful archaelogist making a fairly innocent observation (for her, at least - not that Sanji could ever say as such; Usopp could, and would). "I could go fetch them before our captain eats their share, if you'd like." There was such kindness in her voice with her offer! - but the hearts that attempted to manifest sank from behind his eyes to his stomach with implication. Zoro. Law. Absent. _Damn it_ -

"- No." Sanji answered a little too quickly, thoughts and voice trembling alike as he digested the hearts in his guts and felt they shred through him as though they were made of broken glass. "Don't trouble yourself, my Goddess. I'll go get them; I think I have an idea of where they're at." Law had yet to emerge from the men's quarters, and last he'd seen of Zoro was when the man had gone to the galley but that didn't necessarily mean he was still there as more than one way existed between points A (galley) and B (training room). But he had a hunch that he'd find them in the same place, and if it were true, he would have much preferred they both drown into the sea.

Yet, there was an almost romantic quality about the notion that appealed to his sense of aesthetic that his leaving gave pause. Drowning, a Romeo and his mossy, ape-like, horrendous Juliet who had beguiled him by some means (deep voice, hot body, unfathomable eyes - what did Law really, _truly_ lose himself into when he gazed between their common ground?). And thus, together, they'd hurl their lives down into the same deep waters to be lost there in the throes of some timeless, torrid, primordial depths of a forbidden love story.

But this flight of thought was short-lived as his ever-careening emotions connected with a few sparks enough of his subconscious that his feet moved beneath him, stuttered in the space of a skipped heartbeat as thoughts worked their path to actions. And the power of _knowing_ swayed his step. What they might do when alone - how did they kiss? How did they touch? But his mind always went back to this: how deep, how resonant Zoro could moan when put under pressure by a man of skill. That power that slunk lethargically in little auditory teases in the dark, antagonizing him behind his tightly shut eyes that something in him needed to see in evident light.

 _Notice how dimly your own soul connects to another..._

 _See its reflection, its rejection, in two other halves writhing into a glorious whole_.

In truth, there was nothing there for him; it had nothing to do with him, and there was nothing of invitation otherwise, subtle or slight. The bunkroom that he entered may have been one they all shared, but the moment inside of it did not welcome his presence. It was obvious what he would find, but he stilled regardless - as inside the men's quarters, beyond the shadow of another adjoined room, there came the deepest little tiny _small_ groan. The door to the washroom was ajar, and a well-aimed knife for Sanji's heart surely lay rigged behind it on a trap ready to spring. But he'd let it come for him regardless because he couldn't help himself, and he crossed the room's threshold and pressed upon the wooden door with five fingertips of a splayed hand because he _had_ to see this with his own eyes and not with assumptions. Not to be masochistic with his heart, and not because he sought out pain, but he needed clarity, however much self-deprecation would come with it.

Force this out entirely. See it. Accept it. The truth hurts - it always does, doesn't it?

When Sanji caught himself at his worst, his thoughts weren't dissimilar in nature. There were days where he secretly thought that perhaps there was no such thing as All Blue, not for him. That his Once Upon a Times to his fairy tale had gone too boring and tragic; the most beautiful and profound story he'd ever seen doubled as the most depraved, beginning with the words 'You do not belong here', followed by 'Don't you get it? You'll always be alone'.

But the actual truth behind the door derailed this dismal train of thought, flipped over on itself entirely as reality surfaced in the sight of his open straight-edge razor, its handle clenched with a tattooed hand. Zoro was propped against the sink with his coat pooled at the other man's feet, pants halfway down muscular thighs. With his eyes tightly closed, his neck tilted his head back against the mirror behind him, parted lips loosing yet another small sound before he dropped back down to gaze between the lines of where Law's body pressed into his own. It would have been one of the most alluring sights that Sanji'd ever seen personally in his life, and yet...

And yet, when Zoro's eye opened, it wasn't merely one eye, but two, both the living and the deceased, the left and right - as a pair, one dark and glazed over with a lust that Sanji'd never seen before within it, the other pale yellow and startlingly intense as it observed perversely from this different vantage than its actual owner. Zoro was wearing one of Law's eyes where his own had been irreparably damaged and forever sealed shut - which meant that Law had taken out one of his own for the sake of obscenely voyeuring on... what the cook couldn't see for himself, with the man's body blocking the view. But both Zoro and Law had an active hand involved.

Whatever that was, it was less shallow than a mere handjob and had the swordsman in pieces - figuratively speaking... (perhaps in 'shambles' would have been more apt) that he shut his two eyes against it once more, moaning as though he'd meant to say something but it was all one heavy blur. Placing the borrowed blade on the sink's edge, Law's fingers lifted to Zoro's eyes and pressed forcefully into their lids, blearing them apart and open while the younger swordsman jerked his head aside reactively but to the tiniest extent. What Sanji's known history of the swordsman told him contradicted his actions - characteristic aggression had kissed him goodbye and there was little to no fight in him, just a passion-filled surrender. Giving up, giving in, and Law holding his eyes open until he was satisfied that they wouldn't dare close again, the younger swordsman letting him do as he pleased and not only allowing it, but _getting off_ on it. Unto the point that his thighs parted more and more, only as far as the choke-point of his clothing but enough to knock Sanji's straight-edge to the floor in a startling clatter.

Along with it, the blond cook jumped back from the door. Thoughts, feelings, and feet all stumbling over eachother that he tripped across the strewn out path of them all. Crumpled into a heap of a once elegant man gone mess, he crawled back from the parted edge of the door until his back touched against the couch in the center of the bunkroom.

He heard Law sigh deeply, seeming almost harassed, then, "Shambles." Sanji hadn't even realized he'd stumbled into that room within a room until the shichibukai spoke. But it couldn't have mattered less until he was immediately in front of him, displacing empty air in his teleportation and that strange, filmy, shimmering, anamalous bubble alighted. From the corner of his eye, he could see the younger of the two swordsman stomp angrily past him and out of the room, the clank of his open belt in place of anything he'd had to say as he tugged it back into its buckle when Law afforded Sanji no such decency. His jeans and belt alike were unfastened, parted into the dark shadow of a v-shape that didn't show anything more than an outline of the fact that the man wasn't wearing underwear. But if the indecently small scrap of black fabric hanging out of his pocket was any indication, that hadn't always been the case.

Sanji thought the _ope-ope no mi_ possibly a bit too versatile for anyone's good.

"That's twice in one day," Law drawled, clean-shaven now save for his usual patch, and both eyes back in their rightful head. His expression was perturbed, but not upset, and indifferent to where the cook's line of vision followed though it wasn't inobvious. "The first time was my fault; that was purely reckless on my part. But this - knowing what you now do - isn't so amusing. If there's anything you'd like to tell me, now is a good time. But that isn't a suggestion; my actual suggestion is that you do as I say and talk."

Sanji pushed himself to his full height, pulling free a cigarette from his pocket. "Is that a threat I'm hearing, shitty warlord?" Threats - he did like threats; he could react to them better than Zoro's secret sexual trysts, even if he'd rather have them come from the voice of the swordsman, and not from someone that could cause his crew serious issue on the follow-through.

"Not exactly that," Law demurred as he gave in to a small, almost malevolent smile, "But I think you'd find it preferable if I heard it from your mouth rather than asking Zoro-ya for his interpretation."

He wasn't wrong in that - if there were ever the kind of threat that could stick... Sanji lit his cigarette, puffing it anxiously. The tension was exceedingly thick, but he knew that it was one-sided. "Fine. But not here. Lets go to the galley. I need a drink."

"I could do with one, also, as well as lunch," Law replied as he conjured his power once again with the utterance of "Room." - adjusted his clothing with a gesture of long fingers smoothing mere air, then clasped the cook by the wrist to whisk him away from the men's quarters by the assistance of thought alone. It should have been more jarring, Sanji imagined, to be in one place and then suddenly in another completely but the difference felt as organic as lighting a lamp from a dark room, like eyes fluttering to adjust from a dilated state.

The crew was too busy eating to really take notice of them, especially as Zoro had taken up arms against Luffy to fight for his share of meat, one boot planted on the captain's skull while slapping back extended hands from the dwindling trays that had once been teeming with hot food. In his peripheral vision, Sanji thought that he saw the shichibukai grimace before he simply willed a plate and a generous portion of grilled meat and vegetables to jump into his hand, summoning his nodachi to the other, forgoing the ungodly mayhem of the _mugiwara_ pirates entirely.

Wordlessly, he left towards and galley and Sanji followed on his heel, thoroughly amused. Again, too versatile, the _ope-ope no mi_ ; almost better than invisibility. Almost.

Almost. Maybe. If only a man could take a power for a test run for a day, he'd be the first to sign up, checking in on lady's baths one day and saving food from the gaping abyss of his captain's stomach the next. If a rather uncomfortable conversation weren't about to happen, he might have felt a little more buoyant with that thought as he unlocked the fridge and dug out one of his better pints of ale. One that was rich and dark, opaque as he divided the bottle between two glasses, a far cry from the piss water they had in storage that Zoro could drink by the barrel. The shit typical of a pirate, meant to put hair on a man's chest, so it was said, but the swordsman was just as boyishly hairless as when they had first met. Not that anything else of him could be considered as such. The last few years had showed the man an indecent amount of kindness, and all of the places that might have once given off the _boy_ in him had developed into something so masculine, so solid, ravaging away the child parts in him. Yet, those hairless, smooth legs, strapped as they were with scar-tissue... were becoming in some odd, far-fetched way.

It was strange to think of Zoro like that, as he silently stared into his own glass while placing the other in front of Law where he'd settled at the table, watching him as he dug into his lunch without any sense of urgency. Law was taller than Zoro, but Zoro was only slightly taller than Sanji and had a lot more mass; Law was more slender than both of them, but again he and Sanji were of a similar build. It put him at the bottom of the foodchain, and that had a lot of meaning to a cook. Perhaps more child than anyone with how little experience he actually had.

Sex. That was the pinnacle of love-experience. The experience of a true adult.

Adult men grew facial hair; Sanji merely thought it made him look sensible.

(Questionable).

Adults liked alcoholic beverages; he drank it for the taste of it. He liked the flavor.

(Just maybe).

He stubbed out his cigarette in a nearby tray, immediately reaching for another, godsend that it was. Lighting it with a drop of a flame from his lighter, he didn't bother pocketing it nor his pack, but placed them on the table before he dropped down into the chair across from the warlord.

"I..." he began, because it was one of many ways to begin a beginning (he'd rather have a quick ending), shifting his cigarette from the right hand to the left, "You'd missed lunch. Robin was going to go looking for you two, and I knew what you were probably up to and I didn't want her to see." A half-truth. Besides, if the rest of the crew found them out, then it'd make it seem almost official. Or... exclusive. "Other than that, I don't really know what to tell you." A full-truth. Inhale. A few seconds of pause before breathing out a thick stream of smoke, watching it twist up towards the ceiling and coil like a swordsman's tetsumaki.

"I get why you came, but that doesn't tell me why you stayed. Why you watched." Law let his fork dwindle in his fingers, rocking back and forth by a single tine on his plate as his other hand palmed his pint glass to drink from it generously, licking his lips of a deep flavor before he continued to speak, "For example, you could tell me that you're monitoring Zoro-ya's diet and need to calculate adjustments to balance out the servings of my protein shake. Or, how about, the extra caloric intake needed to keep up with all the gay sex he's suddenly having." Sanji winced. He didn't know the pirate doctor that well, but well enough to know that very little of what he said or did was not deliberate; in this case, letting Sanji know exactly how fucked this really was and how derisively he was being looked upon, however subtly. "Or, that you spying on us had nothing at all to do with how you've been staring at me the last few days as though I might give a damn, which I don't, by the way."

"Shit."

Sanji had meant to say 'No' or 'It's not like that', but the first word that popped into his head and out of his mouth seemed far more apt for the moment.

"Indeed," Law agreed, leaving Sanji to silently brood as he resumed eating as though nothing were amiss, like he hadn't just scalped the cook's naked, defenseless heart with one blow. Crushed it in the same way his cigarette snapped when he stubbed it harshly into the ashtray. The pain that Sanji had been bottling up came back with an unholy zeal, the same old fucking song and dance, and yet again, reminded of the existence of a person that Law couldn't say the same thing towards - not just any person, but Zoro - meant that Law had plenty of damn to give, just not for him. Of all rejections he'd faced, it was far from the coldest or harshest, but it swayed his spirit the deepest. It wilted him inside, his heart, his pride as a man, and it made him stupid. It made him fragile-

"Gochisousama deshita."

\- And as Law settled back, looking up at him over an empty plate, it made him strike out with an ill-bodied fury in the most pathetic of things to say, "Oi, Law, I just... I don't get it. Why Zoro? What's so special about him, anyway? I'm just as attractive as he is, right?"

The shichibukai's posture went from casual to very rigid and still in his seat, mouth slowly opening as though careful to choose his reply, but Sanji would have none of it, his heart gripping his judgement in a choke-hold and preventing him from thinking his words through before he spoke them. "I don't... with men... I've never... I mean, I know I can't do what Zoro does..." His straightedge may have been forgotten on the washroom floor, but what couldn't be so easily discarded was the way that it had been put it to use. "But I know I can be just as good as he is for you."

"Kuroashi-ya, don't do this..." Gentle words for a not-so gentle command in connotation over the lip of Law's glass, eyes raising up beneath the hood of dark lashes as he drank deeply. With shaking hands, Sanji did the same. While Law drained his ale quickly and set it aside, the cook's hands remained wrapped around his own glass securely, cooling and wetting his fingertips, lest he found them too idle, skittering and trembling on the tabletop.

Law continued speaking. "I believe I've misunderstood your intentions. I thought this was about... well, nevermind that. But do you really want an honest answer? Do you? I don't make a habit of lying and I'm not going to start now for your sake."

It was true that Law did not tell lies, he knew this as just the barest recollection of what had occurred a few days prior on Punk Hazard had been rather telling. How well the warlord played off of assumptions, allowed others to think what they wanted without intervening words, without being dishonest, without anything in particular. As though he thought it were a game to work deception without being so crass as to spin falsehoods, he had in impressive skill in how his ever proverbial ace-up-the-sleeve remained withheld and kept well-guarded. He bluffed often and did it well, the way Sanji tried at, and sometimes came off as that kind of a bad ass, but usually couldn't help it and lay his cards out on the table before he'd even put in his wager. He couldn't deny that times such as those could often involve a beautiful lady.

But, it was still frustrating, being an open book like that.

While Law only revealed what he wished, as he wished, with secretive expressions of amusement for reasons also tightly abstained. What he chose to convey was hardly sugar-coated, his words and actions alike all made up of shadow-puppetry in kindness' stead. And if anyone thought him an asshole for it, the man never let it be his problem.

Knowing this, Sanji could only nod, weathering out his emotional storm.

"You're more invested in Zoro-ya than anyone else, so I thought you would understand best why I am attracted to him. Although I don't mean to be - it's bad for business, you could say, but it almost can't be helped. He's exactly my type, but more importantly, I am exactly his type," Law said, his voice characteristically void of any fondness that any other man might have had with the sentiment, and his gaze was ever as inscrutable - a yellow-eyed cipher. "He satisfies the parts of me that most men can't even stomach; he's a man of extremes; he challenges my skill. You can't know what its like, nor should you. Whatever competition you and the swordsman are currently in-between, I can't and won't involve myself in it. We'll be in Dressrosa tomorrow and that is where my terms with your captain end; work out your problems on your own time."

"You don't get it - this isn't some contest," Sanji said, draining his glass to the bottom as a poor substitute for comfort, "On a good day, the Marimo and I don't get along. So, no, I'm the very least qualified person to understand what anyone else sees in him. Hatred might be too kind of a word - outside of being useful in a fight, he's the dullest, stupidest, rudest, and most egotistical and directionally-challenged sack of third-rate shit on the Grand Line. Ever heard the saying 'a rolling stone gathers no moss'? He's covered in it because he's _that_ lazy and worthless. Everything he does fucking repulses me."

' _And what he is doing is Law_ ,' his brain helpfully supplied, ' _Is that repulsive, too_?

The answer was 'no'. While painful, it was entirely to the contrary. Hearing, _seeing_ Zoro come alive with a passion that had nothing to do with bloodlust and everything to do with lust itself, going all indulgent, skin delicately pinked when nothing of him in no-such-way could ever be mistaken otherwise as delicate. The voice, the eyes, the skin, the twitches - everything a big contradiction of what his knowledge defined as 'Zoro'. And like Law, suddenly, his image was painted in one grand secrecy, punctuated with lines and lines of nothing but question marks.

"I'm sure that he does," Law eventually replied, standing from the table, "Holding the things you can't have in antipathy is always preferable to alternative, Kuroashi-ya."

Shouldering his nodachi, the corner of the man's lips quirked wryly. "Either way, I'm going to enjoy what I can, while I can. Unless you have good reason, please don't us interrupt again."

And with that, the shichibukai parted from the galley, leaving Sanji alone to his dismal thoughts, or lack thereof as he took to a tireless mental litany of _fuckfuckfuck, fuck_! When he should have stopped Law before he got in the last word, should have grabbed a hold him, dragged him back by his balls if he had to, but he didn't. Should have told him that he didn't know shit, that he wasn't at all qualified to make the kind of insinuation that he had, should have told him that he was wrong.

Should have, but didn't, because maybe he wasn't wrong.

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he really didn't fucking know.

He just didn't.


	3. Chapter 3

Sanji had taken more than enough blows for one day. He was overwhelmed.

His world seemed as though it had been turned on its head, its contents shaken and scattered about only to see that what remained turned out all incompatible from what he'd always thought. A recipe known by rote with ingredients that suddenly didn't measure out quite right.

Male pride was replaced by a pitiable form, jealousy and scorn binding his head into a serious ache as it rest on the galley's table for some time, arms wrapping around his temples and crown as if that had ever helped anything at all. To try to alleviate something, anything of what he felt, he attempted to conjure the image of his beloved mermaids in his mind, imagining them languishing in sunshine-warmed, tropical waters. But their indecent curves were quickly and invariably sent adrift to thoughts of hard bodies, scales to scars, plush red lips to a thin pink - a chapped backdrop for a cocky, lop-sided smirk. And among the many fish in the sea (both proverbial and not-so), one stood out in the many, and Sanji imagined what it might be like to drift into him, look into his eyes for the first time as he never had bothered before - explore the unknown where his enmity had filled in the blanks as too dull and predictable to merit more than a cursory glance. Truly, truly gaze into that suddenly-alluring darkness, let it envelope him as only muscular arms and legs could, and drag him down into unfathomable depths.

And maybe, somewhere deep down in there, clarity. He didn't want to admit that he had a blind-spot as far as Zoro's better qualities were concerned, but he admired Law just enough to trust (if not fully respect) that something was there. In those suddenly playful expressions, off-character shows of affection, or just maybe in that language of the body that he had never been able to translate. Nor had he ever really tried to understand.

His attraction to Law had been unprecedented. But it was all... this was all different. Breath-taking and crushing. Awing yet awful. And it wasn't one-hundred percent wrong, what the man had said to him - it was true that hatred was easier than longing, but whether or not it applied to his situation was a deliberation that would necessitate more cigarettes and wine bottles than he had time in the world to go through before a conclusion could be made. In the meanwhile, he wondered if there couldn't be something better he could think of that might also be easier than just riding out his pain, his _jealousy_. Something he could place in its stead. But nothing he immediately thought of would distract from it, and it didn't help to have any more answers than he had some hours prior, but likely made it all worse.

What would take away from loving someone you could not even touch?

But not ' _love_ ', exactly. That was too much, a bit premature, and immature.

'Feelings'. Vague and stupid and unexplainable. Wanting _something_ , but never knowing exactly what it was, and in that short period of his indecision nigh on an almost-denial, had slipped from him before he could even delve through any of the details.

Longing. Absent of definition. Loathing. For a little bit of everything, but mostly his own self.

And a heart that had a knack for always getting in the way.

Always pounding.

Always resounding.

Even then, thudding anxiously in his chest as the galley door opened and his heavy eyes did the same, watching as the shape of three-swords adjoining a long shadow against the wall emerged and then disappeared just as quickly. In the way that palpitations come and go, they slowed and stabilized with footsteps that left into the kitchen and he could have sighed aloud in relief - maybe he did, maybe he didn't, maybe maybe, maybe not caring as much as he should have at a bit of clamoring in his domain that may or may not have been a swordsman getting into his shit. Or breaking things. Or breaking the lock on the fridge. At that point, he didn't care, so long as he found what he needed and got the fuck out.

Pulse.  
(Please just go away, Zoro).  
Pulse.  
(I want to be left alone).  
Palpitate.  
( _I hate this_ ).

But that was never how things worked, and Zoro came back, pausing at Sanji's side. His chest seized up entirely and something hardened like the formation of a rock in his trachea that he struggled to swallow back before it choked him, before he was reduced to common tears, when a firm hand touched upon his shoulder. With a gentle squeeze, as if to ask him ' _are you okay?_ ' (it was a stupid question, anyway) - he'd expected only antagonism, not a show of concern, but he hadn't it in him to bother complaining. It was almost laughable, fled of his last shreds of his dignity to be Sanji-like and shrug Zoro away with some biting insult as he was typically wont to do. But there was nothing more to cling to than the swordsman himself, the fragments of his remaining pride too tiny to be worthwhile, and so he allowed the man that small liberty. Zoro had never been good with words in situations like these, he knew, but they weren't needed anyway. His actions did the talking in his voice's stead-

 _What, shitty-cook?_

 _What's really bothering you?_

As Sanji sighed deeply, Zoro's grip on him tightened, almost imperceptibly.

 _-_ Never mind _, I know that it's me._

Sanji wondered for a moment as sat there in his inarticulate slouch, how Zoro had always displayed large kindness only to children and small animals, or other defenseless and weak things that couldn't help themselves to defy their nature. He wondered how non-adult he really illustrated himself to fit into that spectrum.

Why ( _are you suddenly being so good to me_ )?

Why ( _does it make me feel so small_ )?

How pathetic did one really need to be, how remarkably powerless and how _childlike_?

That thought - that word made his hand drop from the table to grasp onto Zoro's thigh, the closest part of him that he could reach, and dig his fingers in deeply with secret meaning. The man was physically rock-solid everywhere - Sanji was too in his own way, in so much less mass - but he could notice the difference from this vantage, how their bearings were all shifted around, and he wondered if it had always been this way. He wondered how long he had been oblivious to how developed Zoro truly had become over time. A man now, capable of seeing something, liking it, and going for it without tripping over his own heartstrings, and welcoming it that quickly into his bed.

"You stink like sex, Marimo," he finally said, snorting derisively at his companion, but it was half-hearted, really. "If you haven't washed that hand on me, I swear that I'll fucking kill you."

An amused huff, soft breath of air, but Zoro said nothing and that was just as well. Sanji hadn't the energy to fight with him, for once. Just let things be and allowed the swordsman to do as he liked; it didn't matter at this point, in any event... or so he thought. Because he hadn't expected the unexpected, Zoro leaning over him to wrap him up in his arms properly and hold him against his naked chest, still absent of his coat. A touch of lips in his tousled hair came so gently that it might have just been an illusion that it'd happened at all, only Sanji's imagination that the slightest movement shifting the air was more than merely that. Just air. Maybe a distant hope for some form of validation because the other man's skin was so warm that he couldn't help but press his cheek into it with no excuses for his actions. So very, very warm. And despite all put-on pretense, the heady fragrance of his body - sweat, sex, virility, adulthood - it all smelled _so good_.

"You're thinking too loud," Zoro eventually said, his voice low but seeming so large and significant, "I can feel all that noise in your head and that says something; my kenbunshoku haki is kind of shit, but I can still tell that you're being a moron from the other side of the ship. You want something that you can't have, but you can't have anything because you never even try, and you're all that surprised that you've got nothing?"

"You know that's bullshit. I try. I give everyone my fucking _all_ \- every women I've ever admired. I mean, look at Nami - I devote everything to her and you know that. But the first male I'd ever met that I'd actually wanted, I barely even had a chance to think of the possibility -" He pulled away from muscular arms when he would have rather stayed as long as possible and let himself drown into that alluring blend of Law-scent on Zoro-skin, magnified by his immense body heat.

Instead, he found himself looking the man squarely in the eye as it was what the situation seemed to call for. And unfortunately, Sanji was always calling the loudest, even when he never meant to.

"And I think about you like I can't fucking help it - whatever the hell you are - you're the only person I can't figure out now. I've never known you to want anything. Or anyone. Until now." He swallowed thickly. "You and Law seem to get it on just fine, anyway, and I'd hardly say either of you tried at all."

"Hn. True, but I'd chalk that up to chemistry. Physically, yeah, its all pretty effortless - no one has ever made me feel as good as he does. I'd be surprised if anyone else could get close to his level," Zoro admitted quietly, meeting his gaze, "But I did at least flirt with him a little. Kind of made innuendos, but I didn't think he'd act on it. Especially as quickly as he caught on. It's not like I'm a virgin or anything, but that guy knows his stuff. And _exactly_ what I like, better than I even do." He gave a satisfied grin while Sanji felt his throat go dry and stiff. There was probably a deeper meaning to the fact that both swordsmen over-shared their stance towards their sexual escapades with each other when neither were the sharing type. Not in any sense. He really didn't want to know any more, nor explore why that was, pressing his lips together into a thin line as though trying to keep the questions and comments from popping out.

But he had also said it himself - _I can't fucking help it_.

"So I heard. And saw. But I didn't think you had really talked, at least no more than the two of you getting all hot under the collar over a shitty sword before hopping into the sack together."

Zoro, simple-minded as he was, reverently eying the beautifully well-crafted blade that always accompanied the shichibukai. Acting as though he could practically get off on the thing, traipsing his fingertips so delicately and deliberately, smoothing them up and down's the swords hilt as though it were-

It were-

... Oh.

Just " _Oh_."

Phallic symbolism then, was it?

"Oh, God damn it, you stupid, shitty moss ball, where the hell have I been and when did you learn how to be that slick?" And for how long had he been reading the man's motives so erroneously? He exhaled deeply as he continued, "You've definitely changed... I guess have too, without noticing. We all have to at some point, even if not at the same pace. I guess that's why personal revelations always happen when you least expect them." And the meaning to those words... he'd care not to embellish, and it likely wasn't necessary, anyway.

He turned away from the swordsman and towards the tabletop again, palming his face and running his fingers upwards into his hair. He could hear Zoro move around him, making himself useful for once in his life for more than just stabbing things with pointy objects (or making sexual innuendos with them, apparently), collecting the empty glasses and Law's plate from the table. It reminded him that he had better things to do than sulk all day, but heartache had the better of his more industrious nature.

"Maybe. I've been kept too constantly busy the last few years for any of those. But if it'll help you feel settled, Cook, I can take some time after we finish our business with Doflamingo to rethink things over. And then I'll let you know what I find. But that's not the kind of shit that just happens in a day."

Sanji tilted his head at that, eying the swordsman askance as the man busied himself in filling the sink with soap and water. He hadn't even noticed that he'd brought in all of the lunch dishes from outside when he'd first came in. It was strangely thoughtful of him, his actions and words both. If Zoro'd meant what he thought he'd meant...

"You..."

Why ( _would you do that_ )?

"I'll think things over," Zoro repeated firmly, " _Later_."

"But Law, though..."

"Isn't gonna be here," Zoro answered to his unasked question, an unhappy growl subtly tinging his voice though Sanji couldn't wager a guess at whether it was meant towards the situation or towards himself in a loss of patience. Either way, it was a little (unadmittedly) attractive. "But while he is, it's exactly what I want right now. I'd like to keep seeing him, if he'd let me, but I don't think he's likely to go for that. The timing isn't exactly great, here."

"I can see that much; Law mentioned something of a similar vein... but if that's what you want, then what the fuck is stopping you? You can't have anything when you never even try - that sound familiar?"

Zoro sighed irately with his submerged hands stilling for a moment. "Yeah, but you also said it yourself, that you didn't have time to think of the possibility. I don't need to." He moved on to the next plate. "Like this alliance, it's only temporary. It serves both of our purposes for now, but after this is all said and done, if there's anywhere else to go but against each other... I can't see it."

"I can," Sanji replied easily.

He _can_ and he _could_ because, while he was a stranger to homosexual coupling, he knew how to read emotions, no haki required. Ever the expert in how it was to dream a dream and lose it (yourself) to something that others would call less grandiose only because they simply couldn't understand until they saw it for themselves (a calling; _something_ you needed to answer to, damn the consequences, and damn what anyone else thought).

"Is that so?"

It was so. The mad feeling of confusion and hiding it behind a mask of indifference ( _why_ do you want it? _why_ can't you forget about it? _why_ does it soothe your soul and split it into twos by one-and-the-same gestures?) The losing of control, forgetting what's supposed to be more important to you (All Blue) and your focus just _narrows_ to nothing (nothing at all) but (the heart's) desire. The thing that you want just for yourself alone. A certain someone you want beside you that assures you that your dreams still matter. That _you_ matter.

"I know the look in that man's eyes, Zoro..."

The way that Sanji looked at mermaids.

The way Zoro sometimes (but platonically) looked at Luffy -

(The beginnings of a new dream.. fresh, tentative, and uncertain, but there, regardless).

\- however significant... wasn't Sanji's place to reconcile for them. And so, "It worries me," he continued to say as he looked on towards Zoro doing what was supposed to be his job, rather guiltlessly swerving this subject off its course. "He looks at you like he wants to make you dirty."

The swordsman paused and glanced over his shoulder, his grin fierce.

"I know he does. I like it."

"Of course you do. I'm sure you also like it when he donkey punches you before he... Ugh. Never mind. Just... be careful. If I ever have to overhear a safe word out of you more than once, don't think that I won't hesitate to kill him," Sanji sighed, disturbed by his own line of thought as he reached for his cigarette pack, tapping one free. "Or whatever. You're both creepy as fuck. You're probably made for each other."

Zoro hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing but said nothing, and Sanji was grateful for that - the sound of the dishes clacking together in the sink made everything feel a bit more ordinary, made him feel like things made more sense. Even if the swordsman washing them himself voluntarily without being harassed or blackmailed into doing so was vastly outside their established conventions. Much like the fact that Zoro had tried at lending him some comfort, had held him like a friend, like a brother - as though he were **loved** \- had showed him some amount of empathy and wasn't met entirely with a kick upside the head in exchange for his effort.

As he thought on it, he likened the moment to something as anomalous as being cradled in the arms of a large dragon. A human could never feel entirely at ease in such a stiff, unpracticed show of warmth, but being that unpracticed was what made it infinitely poignant. Such an atypical, surprising, beautiful and profound thing. The fact that Sanji had so easily let him go seemed almost criminal now that it was over and done with. Being cared for like that... made him feel...

Feel...

He flicked his cigarette ashes in the tray with a one-two-three tap.

 _Feelings_.

If it could happen again, perhaps being pathetic and weak had its own set of perks.

And perhaps it was better if the two swordsmen never figured out just how common the ground was that they both tread upon before parting ways. It was selfish, but then, Sanji had never claimed to be a saint, and had plenty of perverse thoughts running through his mind at any given point to prove that. Still, if it meant that he didn't have to feel so alone and unwanted anymore... even if he had to hurt someone else, too... _sigh_. That he was even vaguely entertaining the thought of sacrificing his nakama's happiness for his own was completely and utterly _fucked up_ and made him feel like an even worse pile of crap than anything Law'd had to say.

"Knock it off over there, shitty cook - I can hear your brain simmering from here."

He looked up at that, eyes boring a hole into the back of the swordsman's head at his rather idiotic and sorry attempt at a cook pun. "Idiot. You can't actually hear my thoughts, can you?"

"Thankfully, no," Zoro replied, somewhat belatedly as he swapped one dish in hand for another, "But I can tell you're over-thinking shit. If you've really got so much free time, you should spend it trying harder not to be a dumb ass."

"Yeah, free time, says the man doing my chores for me." But he didn't quite feel like fully rising up to the bait, no matter how tempting - he, after all, wasn't the one who spent half his day staring at the back of his eyelids and/or the bottom of a sake barrel. When not training, that is, and Sanji didn't have adequate enough free time as he'd like for that, either. Though it wasn't a complaint. Merely a fact.

"And anyway," he continued, "I have every right to have a lot on my mind, asshole. Not everyone is just as fuck-all satisfied as you are with just doing or saying the first thing that comes to mind, damn the consequences. I'm out of my element, here, and it makes me all-" like a little kid all along, playing pretend at being a man... but Sanji would never share that thought aloud. He sighed, stubbing out his cigarette, his nerves still all a'fray. "I don't know. Like my skin doesn't fit right. Like I'm a waste of it entirely. And it's stupid, but I feel like I'm going to be just as unwanted the rest of my life as Law made it _very_ clear that I am right now. It's always the same, and I can't take this shit anymore."

Zoro openly scoffed at that - rudely, bluntly and as insensitive to Sanji's confession as anyone would expect of him as he turned to look at him over his shoulder. "Then fucking _do_ something about it - take some goddamn initiative instead of acting all lovesick and hoping something comes of it. What did you even say to Law, anyway? Instead of doing the right thing and shoving your tongue down his throat to get your point across, you got all desperate with him and made pathetic heart eyes like a moron. Am I right?"

"What? Fuck you! No, I..." he faltered there, because it wasn't the way that Zoro had put it, but desperate might have been close enough of a word to be the correct one for how he had behaved. But he had zero interest in letting the swordsman weigh in on the conversation he'd had with the shichibukai, for several reasons, though humiliation was far up on the list. And not so keen on giving him ammunition for future insult-wars, in any event. "We just talked, and it went bad - he fucking cut me down before I could barely get a word out... let alone try and make out with him like a fucking barbarian... what the hell, Marimo? I'd just caught you two half-naked together doing God-only-knows-what to each other. What kind of an asshole would do that to his nakama?"

"I don't know - do we really look that conventional to you to give a shit? You keep talking as if this is more complex than it actually is-" Zoro flicked his hands free of dishwater, wiping them dry on his pant legs as he turned to give the cook his full regard, weight resting back against the counter top. "Well. Is and isn't. Everything is always pervaded by complications. Nothing is really pure, or black and white, and everything is convoluted. But if you let that scare you off, then you are an idiot and a coward. In this instance, you should already be aware that your chances with Law and actually having a normal relationship are basically zilch even without me standing in the way. He has his own ship, and crew, and goals, and they aren't ours. This overlap is temporary. You get that? So what would you have done with knowing that - let it go?"

"Probably... I don't know. I don't exactly enjoy signing myself up to be hurt," he huffed in reply.

"Yeah, that's part of your problem. You can't know that you're going to get hurt. And even then, so fucking what? Experiencing a full gamut of emotions, especially the bitter ones, makes you stronger for them in the end - they're necessary. You can try and wait for everything to be sunshine and rainbows and blah blah blah and treat love like it only happens when its pretty because you think its the right thing to do, but its all just a cover for what you're really feeling, which is afraid. Of getting hurt, or losing a part of yourself if you give in to more honest, base actions. I'm not always satisfied, but I know I can trust my gut, because I have a shitload of experience in making these kinds of choices. So do you. You just start being a total pushover when it involves romance as if it makes that huge of a difference, when we both know that you know better than to think you're going to be all broken if your choice isn't always the right one."

And with that, the swordsman turned back to his task almost dismissively, letting his words sink into the cook as they hit every nail painfully on every head and left him stunned with their jarring impact. This wasn't the first time that random bits of actual wisdom came from the man's mouth, incredibly rare, and shocking the hell out of Sanji in its occurrence, revealing from time to time that Zoro was more than a monosyllabic, petulant asshole and a metric fuckload more thoughtful and perceptive and sagacious than he never let on. Or really liked to let on. And how does one measure a fuckload metrically, anyway? Does a load of fuck come by volume? Either way, it came so infrequently that sometimes it was too easy to forget how much depth the swordsman actually had at the fine, bottom line of that seemingly black and white (and green) psyche... that actually held quite the spectrum of colors, when he bothered to give it more than just a cursory glance.

"Both looks and brains, I do like that in a man," came a soft drawl from the doorway that gave the cook a start, though the swordsman reacted as though he'd almost expected Law to be lurking there - as if that always had been the case. Propped against the frame with the most delicate, bare hints of a smile toying at the corner of his cupid-bow lips, casual, temperate as always, bastard that he was. Why did he always insist on looking so damn good?

"Don't get your expectations up too much in the brains department or you'll be setting yourself up for disappointment," Sanji replied, shoving his anguish from his expression and down into his stomach as he stood, rolling up his sleeves to nudge Zoro aside and away from the sudsy water with his elbow bumping into his ribcage, "It happens sometimes that he's got something good to say, but his two working brain cells rotate in a lunar cycle - it'll be another full month before you'll ever see them realign."

Zoro scowled at him and opened his mouth for inevitable rejoin, which would have likely consisted of his extended vocabulary of insults and a possible threat on one or more parts of him being cut off, or just a threat on the cook's life in general... but then decided against it. Largely in part to Sanji leveling him with _a look_ and subtle jerk of his head over his shoulder towards Law's direction in indication that he should go on and join the other man in whatever horrifically debauched activity they had planned for the rest of the afternoon/early evening.

But he couldn't have them thinking that this was a kindness on his part, because that wasn't entirely true. Despite what Zoro had said and however much shitty sense it made, he still needed his space to think, but disguised it as such:

"Now get the fuck out, both of you - I have actual work I need to do."

"One moment, Kuroashi-ya." The expression Law adorned himself with was deliberately coy while the rest of him remained characteristically neutral, detached and aloof, relaxing in his posture with one ankle crossing against the other. Casual. Maddening. _Calculating_. "I wish to demonstrate something that may be of further insight. Are you interested?"

He swallowed down hard, sharply, looking back at Law apprehensively, wondering just how much he was going to regret his reply of, "... Yeah, sure." More lightly put than a sudden awful, very bad feeling worming through his gut as swordsman and doctor traded glances, communicating something between them in the language they shared of subtle nuance in body and eyes. A feeling all the more exacerbated by the silence stretching the room that provoked more questions out of him than it did anything else and answered nothing. As frustrating and rudimentary as an infatuation growing with no actual precedent, or the stance of a man-gone-mysterious that he'd thought he'd known all of the pieces of, all his in's-and-out's, until placed into the context of being someone else's lover.

A silence seemed to reign on and on and on, the moment punctuated by ellipses between his pins and needles and the frustrating taciturn look that Law offered as his only reply.

Dot. Dot. Dot.

 _Question mark?_

"Oi, cook, stop looking at him and look at me."

 _Palpitation._

"Hm?"

Glancing up, there was a mental whiplash effect to the wide-eyed bewilderment of how suddenly close he was to Zoro and how acutely he could feel everything of him and the substantial heat of his body that begged for him to press into it, be held once again in a poignant, dragon-like embrace. A steady and sure heartbeat thrummed in his ears as loud as his own that they could have been one and the same were they not ever-so-slightly off measure as Sanji's own kicked up in speed. The movement of air expanding his chest with the sound of his breath, and whatever dwindling remains of something he had to say in rejoin with a mildly quipped tone... lost... left behind... made unimportant by blunt fingernails dragging through his scalp to find a place of leverage in his hair - twining, tangling, then clenching into blond strands to roughly jerk back and force the tilt of his neck to the claiming of his mouth. Any complaint or protest he may have had went silent before they could truly manifest, gone into a gasp that was licked away from his lips and sucked at with the nip of sharp teeth.

And instead of pushing Zoro away, he pulled him closer with hands pulling at the back of the other man's naked shoulders, fuller against him, everywhere seeking _more_. Because Zoro's mouth was hot and alive, taking him over in sensory overload with the faintest tingle of haki on the tip of his tongue, immovable and firm and yet soft and pliant, saliva-wet conductive to the electricity singing across his taste buds. A flavor there that he couldn't recognize, couldn't name, but took it all in as if it were as necessary as breathing air, an essential to life itself.

y.

And Sanji couldn't help himself but to come apart in malleable innocence.

With the smallest whimper catching between them, soft and throaty and needier than he would have liked, Zoro moved back from him. And when his eyes fluttered open and apart to gaze into the single dark one that bore his reflection in its blackblack too-black iris, he thought he'd see the desire he felt also mirrored there, but didn't. Thought he'd see the longing he felt mirrored there, but didn't. Thought he'd see coveting there, but didn't. Thought he'd see a sudden wanting, or something bigger and better than anything they'd had between them before. Thought he'd see the sudden surge of his own emotions there... unfathomable, unexplainable feelings...

But didn't.  
That had been _nothing_ to Zoro.

' _He's a man of extremes; he challenges my skill. You can't know what its like, nor should you_.' And now he had just a small taste of what Law had meant by that.

Mother. Of. Fucking. God. Damn.

"You alright, love-cook?" Zoro's voice was tinged with amusement, but otherwise unaffected. "You seem a little off." Understatement of the fucking year, and he glared at the swordsman but said nothing. Instead, taking a deep breath as he attempted to smooth down the lines of his suit until all pleats were in perfect arrangement once more, and with it, his posture.

He'd always dreamed of being kissed exactly that way.  
He'd never imagined that Zoro would be the one to do it.

That _talent_ with his mouth...

"Having experienced that, would you so readily insult kissing someone like that or implying that it's barbaric or means less than words?" Law asked, eying him interestedly and paying little to no mind as the younger of the two swordsman slunk back against and practically melted into his side. "I caught what you said before; I couldn't agree with you less or Zoro-ya any more. For future reference, let your actions speak for you. Words have their place, sometimes. But have the most effect on those who are equally as meaningless as the semantics they'll tirelessly argue."

"You sure about that?" Zoro tilted his view askance from Sanji and in Law's direction as he furtively traced the shape of a tattoo on his forearm where it lay beneath his jacket's sleeve. A modest show of flirtatious affection. "I can think of a few things that I could use some help defining. Like what exactly makes rough sex 'rough' and how much roughness is necessary to be more than just plain sex. But if words are too meaningless for you..."

"Well." Law's expression lifted, a hint of white teeth baring at the edge of a half-grin, smiling at him like he couldn't help it when they both knew better. "I did say that words had their place sometimes. If you need some assistance with your... inquiry... I have some fairly good examples I could show you..."

"Enough of that, you two are done here - get the fuck out of my kitchen at let me work, for real," Sanji finally bit out, feeling the lines of his proverbial limit pressing at his skull. "And if either one of you two perverts are even a minute late to dinner, I'll be kicking so far up both of your asses, you'll be tasting heel for weeks."

"I'd like to see you try, shit cook," Zoro snorted as his hand came up to rest on the small of the shichibukai's back as they stepped from the galley together. Unhurried enough that Sanji didn't miss Law's vague and distant reply that had the other man grinning sharply, almost sickly.

"I would like to see that, too. But only because it has certain potential."

As the door fell to a close behind them, Sanji's weight sagged and he resisted the urge to bang his head repeatedly against the counter top, but instead gathered the silver and remaining dishware from the bottom of the filthy sink water to finish up the afternoon's cleaning, feeling at the frayed ends of his proverbial rope.

 _You're both creepy as fuck. You're probably made for each other._ His own words came back to haunt him - it'd been a jibe, but what a true fucking statement that was. Heathens. Both of them. But there were a number of ways, and not just in having an extremely twisted sense of... well, there was humor, but also life as a whole - that they paid compliment to each other. What wasn't a similarity was a fine-fitting match. What wasn't a match could be a beautiful coordination.

Though one couldn't ignore the more outstanding aesthetic value of their interactions.

They looked, for lack of better words, hot together, and ridiculously so, albeit a little too kinky for Sanji's delicacy of both mind and sexual desires, the leches. Even then, all that calm, confident, and deadly carriage they both commanded in their step, while aggravating, was also incredibly sensual when placed in the context of the bedroom. Or men's quarter's, much to the suffering of his still-shattered heart - the outbreak of heartbreak, all jagged at their splits and difficult to mend back into place, still tormented by those moans that had resounded in the darkness. Made worse by knowing the way that Zoro could kiss when he considered it, when he put his fingers to his own lips and traced them as the other man had with his tongue. It tied his soul, heart, body all up in knots, yet Zoro was the one who submitted under Law's strength, shuddering as he came _undone_ beneath the warlord's hands.

And Sanji found himself there again, sounds echoing in his thoughts as though he were still laying on the bunk rigged beneath Zoro's own, listening heavy-hearted as each sound was ravished from the telltale slurps of french-kissed skin from amused lips that he, for a moment, allowed himself to imagine as dutiful, greedy, over-eager as they were stretched wide apart. Running hot and wet, licking up and down every one of the green-haired swordsman's sensitive spots and swallowing down mouthful after mouthful of a hard, blood-thickened cock. The way that Law must have looked, then... the intensity in his yellow eyes, flecked gold with lust...

He breathed in deeply. ' _Bad thoughts, Sanji_ ,' he inwardly warned, but thoughts he was at least thankful be alone with, though he wondered how it was that he'd let his mind go to the gutter once more without the single fin of a mermaid and if his rationale had fled along with his sea-dwelling beauties.

Regardless, Sanji's relationship... friendship... nakamaship... call it what you will... with Zoro forever suffered in how easily they both were quick to take offense (and make no mistake, he knew that offense was most always something taken, not given, yet they equally somehow seemed to excel at both in each other's regard) merely at the thought of the other's existence. But the thinner side of Law's skin was only really theoretical, and something that only Luffy knew how to miraculously produce from the otherwise discreet and tranquil warlord.

And knowing Zoro the way that Sanji did (like the back of his hand and every line, even the most fine), at least the parts that weren't all distorted and confused by revelation - eventually, that quality of Law's would begin to irk the everliving shit out of the man. Under the skin was a place that he simply liked to be. Whether by just being his usual infuriating self whist marauding about the sea as the cockiest asshole who'd ever hoisted a sail to it, or by way of peeling it all back with a sharp katana's edge, guided by the taste and touch of his blood lust - literal and proverbial flaying was his _bread and fucking butter_.

And Law was, of course, very keen on his feelings towards _bread_.

But then again, Sanji could be wrong. He could be over-thinking it all. It could just all be a bad side effect of not being able to keep his heartaches and headaches and all otherwise aches down and bottled. His inability to keep it to his self and bide his time when, as both men had pointed, their own time together was not one without limitation. As it was, he'd probably blown any chance he might have had with at least one of the two swordsman if not both - as at that point, it would be a miracle if Law had even an iota of respect for him, and heaven only knew that once Zoro got around to re-evaluating his thoughts on the matter, the moment would be long expired and dead in the water. And even then, he'd just be a means to an end - a rebound and eventually dismissed.

Which made it a 'now or never' kind of moment. Because he'd royally fucked up. Not even just that day, but fucked up over time in how he'd taken Zoro for granted in a long history of constant fuck ups, and he'd probably keep on fucking up, but now that he could see it, at least he could have it happen somewhat on his own terms. Not sitting about all heartsick and sad, dropping mental flowers on the gravestone of his yearnings for companionship long before that grave had ever been even dug, letting the eulogies of half-baked fantasies and mermaids sing him to rest.

No. He wanted what Zoro had, and in that, it meant that he'd have to take away what _Law_ had. But that wasn't fair to either of them. But that didn't mean he had to stand to be a child about what he wanted any longer.

That child in him, all-too-willing to strike only when the iron was no longer hot, fearing the burn.

It was about time that he learn to grow the fuck up.

 _You just start being a total pushover when it involves romance as if it makes that huge of a difference, when we both know that you know better than to think you're going to be all broken if your choice isn't always the right one._ And though he hated to give the man any large amount of credit, he had been completely right.

Though Sanji's appetite was mostly shot, once he actually got into the thick of preparing their evening meal, it came back with a fiery vengeance and a craving that he couldn't quite place. Since they were about to hit land the following morning, he could afford to be a little indulgent if that meant he could restock a few things. Though by 'indulgent', he hadn't really thought that he'd end up with half the refrigerator's contents disgorged onto his counter tops as he re-visualized his dinner plans with more variety... perhaps a wide assortment of tempura? And yesterday's fish bones could make a good soup stock and he had just enough time to set that up to boil.

As busy as he was, he barely noticed when Zoro eventually re-entered the galley and greeted him as flippantly as usual, though the aura he carried in with him was... perplexed, if he were to give name to it. Not troubled, exactly, but not entirely as all together as he'd been only an hour ago, either.

"What is it now, Marimo? You miss these lips already? Can't get enough?"

"Not quite," Zoro snorted as he strolled fully into the kitchen, wearing his coat and sash once more with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the top of the partition. "It's about what I said a little bit ago - I meant it all, but I pulled a few punches I wouldn't have once I figured out that Law was probably eavesdropping. That nodachi of his is... well. Never mind, anyway, what I said was for his benefit as much as yours. I don't actually have any right to lecture you."

Sanji looked to Zoro with wide eyes underneath the confused furrow that had taken to his curled brows. "Was that... an apology? - the fuck is this world coming to?"

"No, I'm only admitting to being a little hypocritical... with Law, I guess..." his voice dropped; whatever he said here, this was definitely for Sanji's ears alone. "I'm scared too, cook. But it's not about me getting hurt. It's him. I don't want to..." he huffed, running a hand up the back of his neck agitatedly, frustratedly, rubbing through his hair where it grew the thinnest and finest at the base of his skull. "Fuck. I'll explain it to you this way: If you hadn't had a man-moment over seeing him with most of his hand up my ass this morning, you think you would have even realized that you wanted to bend over for him too?"

Sanji put down the spoon he'd been measuring spices for the soup with before he could find himself using it to take out Zoro's good remaining eye. "Tact, Zoro-kun, seriously. And I didn't even see anything - it _sounded_ like he was blowing you. I really didn't need the extra mental images, thanks."

"Well, he was doing that, too," he groused impatiently, "Just answer the question."

"Fine, asshole. The answer is 'no'. He's hot. I like looking at him. But sleeping with him or even touching him hadn't even really crossed my mind until then. Maybe it would have later... if I got to know him better... I don't know. I knew that I liked it when I had his attention. That was all."

"I thought as much. Letting something go is pretty easy, but watching someone else have it is a different story. Law's not immune to it; he thinks he is, but he's not. Even though kissing you was his idea-"

Sanji interrupted there, curious. "Why did he want you to do that, anyway?"

"- To prove a point. Either way..." he tugged at the hem of his coat near the collar until it slid down across his left shoulder, letting Sanji's eyes discover the shape of a hideous bruise above his clavicle that had definitely not been there an hour ago, flourishing as an unsightly black-purple blossom with mottled red tinges blending into flesh tone on its outward-most edges, along with the indents of teeth that had broken skin in some places. A fresh mark and already that vibrant - it was going to look pretty nasty come the next day; it was already enough of an eyesore. "See, there's this rule Law and I have about not leaving any physical evidence... or at least trying not to. He did this on purpose; that's a mark of possession if I've ever seen one. Pretty sure it bothered him seeing us kiss, even if he wants to act like it's totally fine... it's really not."

Sanji hummed, eying him half-impressed, but half-skeptical as the swordsman smoothed his green coat back into its rightful place, effective covering the swollen bite mark once more. "So why are you telling me this? You need me to kiss it better or something?"

"If you want. But I need you for a bit more than that," he replied with this oddly determined look on his face, even amongst that confusing mix of errant emotion running off his aura and into Sanji's senses - uncertainty, intensity, conflict, lust, passion, spite - all of these things reaching out to him, in a way. About his fingers, wrists, drawing him in, tugging him forward. It would be so warm, wouldn't it?

His throat felt dry. "What is it?"

 _I need you for a bit more than that-_

 _I need you for a bit more-_

 _I need you_ -

"Help me make Law jealous, cook." 

* * *

I'm a mix between very happy and very unhappy with this chapter, but it is what it is and I can't quite put my finger on it to do any more editing and fretting than I already have... which is A LOT. I'mma just pin the blame on Sanji for that since I keep getting a mental image of Law donkey punching Zoro and I totally lose my shit. XD For those not familiar with the term, it's the myth that when a man clocks his partner on the back of the head mid-coitus, it makes their ass tighten up, thus he'd achieve stronger orgasm. While this is totally not true, I still find it hilarious in this context. XD

Next chapter: Sex. A lot of it.


	4. Chapter 4

I'm sorry that this took forever. I had things, crazy kinds of real life _things_ , getting in the way of finishing the last bit of this chapter, as well as a few other things and stories cropping up. The content of this chapter is incredibly adult, very hardcore, and I wish FFN had the tagging system of AO3 at this point as I used quite a few of them. I tend to write a lot of non-bondage/no-pain kink, and this isn't an exception. Anyway, enough of my babble. Enjoy!

* * *

Evening descended uneventfully, or what could be considered uneventful for the ship and its crew, and dinner had gone... well enough. The spread Sanji created was bountiful with rice bowls and various types of tempura to top them - eggplant, fish, mushroom, and squid - along with the healthy and thick soup he had prepared from fish bones, whatever he could find to satisfy himself under the guise of satisfying one of their guests who was proving himself to be particularly fickle. Which was fine. Whatever Law didn't want, Luffy would have tried to steal anyway, and he didn't mind preparing extras.

As it was, while stifling the urge to steal furtive glances at the two swordsman, he ate and ate and ate and ate as though as voracious as a certain few of his other male crew members. But more accurately, going through tremendous hunger-pangs that had nothing to do with some night terror of starving to death in a long ago place at a long ago time, and more to do with a pathetic attempt to fill up the empty places inside of him to the brim with food, with sustenance. But that wasn't the way that things ever really worked out. That was never how it worked out.

And, anymore, he felt it a steep wager that it ever would.

After dinner, he'd intended to calmly recede into the backdrop of the galley as though part of its scenery, a kitchen accessorized by its attending chef kept to task, but his mind kept going back to his conversation with Zoro. For several reasons, the proposal he'd made should have been shot down completely from the start, and a promise given to him that he'd 'think about it' was a bad idea in how much he found himself entertaining it. First, it was the large admittance on Zoro's part: he was scared, is what he had said. He was scared, not of being hurt, but of being the one accountable for the feelings of another person. Of hurting Law, if such a thing were possible... the man was not glass by any stretch of the imagination, but the thought still remained, and the swordsman's largest fear lay in the potential of being someone capable of doing it. A notion that didn't make him very altruistic inasmuch as simply a hypocrite for letting it hold him back.

If there were a chance of a relationship forming between the two of them, he would be a fool not to take it. But the one and only roadblock in that was Law himself - staunch in the idea that their connection was merely a sexual one and no more, and would come to a simple end by the next afternoon. But there was more going on between them - that was plain as the nose on Usopp's face. And, inspired by Sanji's reaction towards Law, inspired by Law's reaction towards seeing the two crewmates kiss each other, it was a shot in the dark effort on Zoro's part to get the man to come around and actually latch onto the idea of possibly pursuing a 'something more'. To make him realize that the difficulties they might face could be worth it over seeing him taken by someone else. And even then, the chance was small that he'd react all that well and not say to hell with them both, but it was a larger chance than just sitting with his thumb up his ass and doing nothing.

"Come to the training room after everyone else is asleep," Zoro had said. "That's where we'll be."

It would be worth his while, he had said, he would _make it_ worth his while. That kiss was nothing compared to what Zoro was truly capable of - what Law was truly capable of - and the swordsman had conveyed this with a low, purring, seductive magniloquence that Sanji never knew could come from that mouth. Knee-weakening and absolutely indecent.

Regardless, he had shaken his head. "Law would fucking kill me. Just no. There's no way."

But there was. There was a way, and Zoro insisted that he'd take care of that - leave it to him, so long as Sanji was willing to ditch his morality along with his clothes at the door, and not worry over the details... if one or the both men giving him the orgasm of his life wasn't incentive enough...

"Are you really going to give up on a chance to see Law naked, cook? Hard?"

It may have been screwed up logic, but it was a logic he couldn't argue with.

As time moved on, his anxiety began to reign as the warmth of sunlit hours went pale and mute beneath face of the moon, a day or two into its first phases of waning was bright and full-looking. With a large day ahead of them, most of the crew had done the wiser thing and retired somewhat earlier than usual to prepare to land in Dressrosa, while others bounded about with an excited, restless energy that carried them well into the later parts of the night. And while they were all distracted with thoughts of a new adventure, Sanji was the lone witness to the non-attendance of swordsman and surgeon in the songs and drinking games taking place on the ship's deck. Both likely caught up in some world of over-abundant indulgence in each other, their presence up in the training room, _gone_ den of iniquity, tattle-tale'd away by the subtle glow of lantern-light tinting its windows with a faint orange flicker.

A world existing apart from the one that the cook knew, one of salacity and saucy deviance that he'd often dreamed of colliding into his own and had subconsciously bided himself for that moment, assured in its eventual possibility. Yet, day by day, month by month, and year by year, the emptiness of his heart lying barren and uninhabited told a different story. The realization of worlds passing him by from large to small, and slipping through his ever-grasping fingers as though intangible, no matter how he tried, until he could name full constellations through the number of rejections that he faced on a routine basis.

Was this really as he was meant to be? Stuck in a loop of dreams that didn't come true, putting on the airs of contentment throughout his world so as to not be truly a part of it? - to avoid looking about to find himself its lone occupant? Always exuding a desperation for someone, anyone, so as to not be that alone?

And that had forever been his problem. Why ( _not me_ )? Why ( _am I not good enough_ )? Why ( _am I not loved_ )? Whywhywhy... always _why_. Such as this: _Why_ couldn't he be more honest about what it was he actually wanted that he wouldn't have to be plagued by these tired, boring, and worn out self-inquiries?

The answer was, of course, because it wasn't that easy. The admittance that it wasn't about women and mermaids or any other such lovely maiden with a luscious pair of breasts giving way to his utter lack of self control - not at all, when that was the way that loneliness brought out the desperation of him, needy and wanton and any-lady-will-do. Not that, even with his new self-revelations, he'd ever demur from any offer, but...

But it still wasn't what he actually wanted.

What he truly wanted was to be made to moan by a body of solid muscle against his, deep and hot and gut-wrenching in satisfaction, to be brought down the way that only Law could bring him down or to be kissed the way that he was - the way Zoro kissed - with a mouth that takes rather than gives. He wanted to be made just as _impure_ , made _adult_ in the way that the heavy hanging of his testicles, the growth of his facial hair, or the amount of alcohol he consumed never could. And that had been his ultimate deciding factor.

But with the way that Zoro had spoken to him, it wasn't as if he were really capable of any demur, anyway. He needed this. Damn the consequences. They weren't his to bear, in any event.

With a cigarette pressed between middle and forefinger, Sanji deliberated out on the deck beneath the cool air of the night, belly warmed with too much in his stomach and the rough equivalent of three glasses of wine when he'd foregone decorum entirely in the swigs he'd taken straight from the bottle. Not with the intention of getting drunk, but just to keep his nerves in their rightful place before heading up into the training room and crashing into that other world of the two other men's making.

Ashes were carried off into the late night breeze as he flicked them overboard, his mind desperate to come up with something to say. Zoro said he'd take care of it... but he didn't know what that meant. Despite everything, Law's bad side still wasn't a place he particularly wanted to be, and at best, he didn't really feel like weathering a few hand gestures that no one could misconstrue as being polite nor any of the man's scathing remarks for his troubles. When Law struck, he knew exactly where it would sting the most.

By Zoro's account, that was also true in the best of ways possible.

Gathering up his resolve, he killed his cigarette into the sea and grabbed the ladder, alighting the rungs with practiced steps. Upon reaching the top, he slowed, and crept up slowly, carefully, so as to keep quiet and as unobtrusive as possible - tentative - and crouched there, leaning back against the top of the ladder as his eyes drank everything in. The room, the history it breathed of the young swordsman, the thick, thick choking humidity in the air hanging heavy with male scent and alluring tart, salty and pungent sex. The two of them were together on a spread-out towel, engaged in each other - tangled intertwined and with fire in their eyes.

His imagination had done them far too many injustices.

Bathed in the sheen of sweat from hours left alone in their lovemaking, sexing, fucking, _choose your poison_ , their bodies were all aglow in that raw moment and glistening, shimmering, shining golden with sweat as they slid together beautifully beneath the dim cast of a single, small lamp flame. All shadows and contrasts, dark concaves outlining the clenching and relaxing of abdominals and quadriceps; the strain of biceps propping the weight of the swordsman by his palms with his fingers in a clench around the shichibukai's calves as he rode him facing reverse, feet planted and knees bent, his thighs spread wide.

When Sanji had thought that the sound of Zoro's voice before, lost in the throes of passion, had been the most enticingly erotic thing he'd ever heard, nothing prepared him for this - the way he gasped when in the safety of privacy, unfettered, incomprehensible stutterings and the smallest whine to the broken undertones of his groans as though hours of constant pleasure had strained his vocal chords dry and useless. And even then, it was like he couldn't help himself, giving small hiccups of sound with every thrust of Law's cock driving smoothly and fluidly into him at a leisurely, unhurried pace. The way that the older man seemed to wrap himself up in the moment with ease, relishing in his pleasure, was not lost on Sanji. How he took slow luxuriation to every glorious thrust sinking down deep inside - so deep, to the point that the younger male's ass pliantly flattened out against narrow hips, giving it a deliciously generous, quivering bounce.

Watching them like this, so lost in each other, Sanji's hands gripped at the ladder's upper bar as his vision faded to a dim at its edges, darkening out the areas of his peripheral sight as flight instinct kicked in. No matter what Zoro had said, however hotly stating his encouragement, Sanji did not belong here. Nor did any of the given excuses for his presence in that room really seem to stick, all lost in the euphoric chemistry scenting the room, hot and humid and sliding under his skin, beneath the collar he found himself desperately loosening with the top few buttons popped. If the swordsman thought he needed to delve deeper to unearth something more, something significant and larger beyond mere fucking, he need look no further as he already had it. Sanji's lack of experience in these things was a non-sequitur; he knew what love looked like. He dreamed of what love looked like on a near-daily basis.

It looked a lot like this: A level of comfort that spoke of charmed months or perhaps even years, not a meager trickle of days. Like something established in between so many sessions of blissful indulgence, spent carefully exploring each other, knowing the comfort in your partner's body, enjoying them not with just fingers and mouths and cock and other overlaps of extremities, but in harbouring this same amount of languorous passion held cupped in that very moment into Law's inked hands.

But that wasn't the case. It had only actually been _two days_ , all fresh and new.

" _Kuroashi-ya_..." Law's murmured voice was breathy and barely-there, hot, drawn out on the ' _ya_ ' in a way that made it sound as though he were moaning it out in soft ecstasy - which may have very well been the case. Eyes suddenly swaying their focus onto him were almost liquid metallic, pinprick pupils drowning into gold-flecked iris, heavy, unreadable, and intense above their dramatically shadowed rim. "Your timing... is flawless..."

A faint, pleased smile lifted the corner of the swordsman's panting lips, his voice hoarse from overuse/abuse as he managed, "You need to come, _Torao_?"

In reply, the shichibukai leaned back against the training room wall and shifted beneath Zoro, lifting beneath his heavy thighs and spreading them open wide as he tilted the man back fully against him to rest against his chest. The angle wasn't as deep, but from that new vantage, Sanji could see everything - _g_ \- as though it were being purposefully presented to his eyes in an obscene display of the swordsman's ass being stretched and gaped over the sizeable length sliding in and out of him. In and out, and in and out, thrusts vulgar and succinct.

Nature gave the man quite a few lavish gifts, it seemed.

"I do need to. And badly," Law breathed against the shell of the younger man's ear, nuzzling his lips against the earrings at its lobe. "So do you. But... a good host should - should always.. oblige his guests.. first."

-In and out and in and out, very languid, very _slowly_ , nearly to the tip before plunging back inside, his cock glistening with lubricant and thick pre-ejaculate sliding down, liquid - honey - molasses - _slow_ dribble into the thin patch of wispy, overly-groomed black hair at its base; if Law was a bit of a hedonist in that respect, Sanji hadn't a single complaint (though he did idly wonder in perverse awe if the man had ever trimmed it into the shape of a heart). Still. Fascinated. Practically transfixed, he could do nothing but stare between their joined bodies with his mouth going dry of anything he could have thought to say while his own dick twitched in protest at his lack of activity.

"It's... only proper manners. Don't.. you agree, Kuroashi-ya? If you do, you-" the shichibukai continued, barely getting his words out into pauses of little, quiet groans, "You.. shouldn't.. _Nnn_ , have any problem in... _obliging_ me... . . . Come here. Come to us."

Sanji didn't remember moving, helpless but to answer that broken invitation as if all control of his body had been relinquished elsewhere. To Law, to Zoro, or to nowhere at all, movements guided purely by an overpowering need to be a part of this - of them. A desire that didn't care what was what, who was belonging to who. Neither of these things mattered. Only something in his mind vaguely registering his feet carrying him forward and crossing the short distance between them, managing a calm that betrayed the nervousness trembling through his lower vertebrae and slowing his gait. More aware of other things taking place through his wide eyes, like the younger swordsman tilting his head against the other's shoulder. Eye closed. Neck exposed. Baring his throat vulnerable as Law's tongue laved along his jugular before open-mouth kisses began. And as soon as Sanji was beside them, a calloused, haphazard hand reached out to palm the outline of his cock beneath his clothing, pressing and rubbing hurriedly against the shape of it - like this wasn't some sort of predetermined ploy to try and get under Law's skin, but like Zoro really, truly wanted it.

Wanted _him_.

Although that could have been his own projection speaking.

(A trick of the mind, an illusion, but a nice one to have, isn't it?)

Groaning through clenched teeth, Sanji quickly began to pull apart the clasp of his belt buckle, jangling loose successive with the sharp hum of a zipper being pulled down. It seemed so loud, inorganic against the backdrop of steady, throaty noises slipping from both of the other two men as the swordsman slid repeatedly up and down in the shichibukai's lap. He watched in something akin to wonderment as Zoro managed to shove his pants down from his hips and pull out his hardening dick, then began to work him over with one sweaty hand.

"Is this... really okay?" he managed to ask, looking helplessly towards the eldest of them, "Earlier, you'd said-"

"I know what I said. Which was- was not to disturb us again if - _fuck_ \- if there isn't good reason; it isn't so... much a.. disturbance if you're actually joining us... is it?" Despite saying that, he could feel Law's gaze none-too-lightly upon him, shadowy-yellow, lost of his composure with his cheeks lightly flush... and distinctly, darkly possessive deep down inside. As if to say, _There is nothing here that I will let you take away from me. Don't even think to try_ , just maybe.

Just maybe...

Law's eyes were full of a secret that his mouth refused to reveal.

Instead, he followed, "Besides, you try, _nnph_ \- try saying 'no'.. to Zoro-ya.. while your brain is being... blown out through your dick. That is an Achilles Heel... I am not ashamed to admit."

But even still. Still... still, that look was still there throughout his offhand self-deprecation. A zeal within him to lay claim and subjugation over Zoro's fidelity entirely, sidelong a deeper, juvenile, fledgling uncertainly of not knowing if his feelings were truly, _truly_ reciprocated, not knowing how to ask, not knowing how to act on it yet they already were - allowing, not fond attachment, but profound lust to worm its way in the stead of awkward emotional exchanges. Men who felt things with their hands and not their hearts.

But that trepidacity or communication breakdown or call-it-what-you-will was no problem of Sanji's, as Zoro's lips, smirking jauntily at Law's comment as they had a 'moment' (Zoro did tell him he'd take care of Law's attitude; however crude, if it let him get his way...) and those lips rose to his cock - such suddenly enticing, pale and slightly chapped lips. When a pink tongue slid out over the head and licked into the opening to his urethra, flicking and teasing around it, their issues couldn't be given any more of a second thought as he nearly stumbled forward and grabbed onto Law's shoulder to steady himself. Half instinctual, half-selfish, guiding him to wet his hands in the sweat that curled the older man's hair from deep blue to black at the nape of his neck, reeling him in with that silky leverage.

And for a moment, he thought he'd almost crossed a line as nothing and no one had said that Law would allow any rough treatment, however accidental. But rather than that (or perhaps because of that - he was, after all, the very _deliberate_ type), his head nudged forward over Zoro's shoulder, tongue darting along the underside of where the swordsman's lips closed around his cock, tonguing and sucking delicately at the large vein on his upwards glide before the two angled together in a messy, overly-passionate kiss that rubbed and smeared at his tip. They were hot and incessant, fevered - succulent wet and pleased hums between them as Sanji moaned deeply, his blood setting aflame. Standing next to them, though above them and tall, he couldn't help but feel tiny in comparison, both so perfect just as they were and remarkably _breathtaking_.

And all he could do was vocalize the moment in a soft moan, low and drawn-out and quiet, a sound barely scintillating above his exhalations, heating through his throat. He must have said something, mumbled a plea or entreated the two men in some way, because Law was withdrawing and lifting Sanji's hands away from him to curl over Zoro's shoulders as the man looked up at him with a one-eyed, bleary, amused gaze as his mouth opened fully and devoured him whole. A hot glaze of saliva was painted up and down his hard and blood-thickened length, with curls of hot tongue teasing the head on his upward strokes, licking into the slit, tasting everything that leaked from it with pursed lips before delving back deep to where his fingers curled, stroking at the base.

Sanji's fingers clenched into short, green, sweat-soaked hair, giving into the urge to fuck into the heat of his mouth and moaned openly, shamelessly, unabashed as he felt the back of the man's throat rub the tip of his cock like hot velvet. Acutely, he could feel the vibrations of his muffled whimpers and gasps and the way his body rocked into Law's powerful, thrusting hips. That plunging hot mouth was bliss, pure bliss, a jagged rapture rushing through him with a wave of heat, as viscid and vicious as the swordsman's saliva leaking down his chin as he bobbed his head on Sanji's dick repeatedly.

"Zoro-ya-" was Law's one and only warning before he cupped the swordsman's ass, sliding away until he was fully out and Sanji stared as the shichibukai gripped himself, pumping with his hand and rubbing and teasing against the pucker of Zoro's ass that gave subtle twitch before he plunged back in - **hard**. And established a more furious pace that fucked Zoro's gasping lips right back onto Sanji, the surgeon groaning into a golden shoulder and licking at the salt of his skin aimlessly before his mouth re-discovered the purplish-black bitemark and he sank white teeth back into it. Possessing, holding, controlling and owning - _mine_

But he had it all backward, didn't he?  
 _You're a_ _ **mess**_ _, Torao, aren't you? - of the most beautiful kind, of course._

As Law belonged to Zoro entirely, not the other way around.  
After all, if the claim was already there, why else would he feel the need to assert it?

Things don't always work out the way you want.

Sanji was familiar with that feeling.

( _Even when not searching for a dream, sometimes it finds you first - sometimes it picks you up, carries your heart off without your head, and before you're even aware of what's actually happening, that dream will gently consume you entirely with its arms open-wide unto its_ _ **feeding**_ )

The man was at his end and overcome, erratic, not the Law that Sanji knew in that moment, but mindless, unleashed, emotions stark in his golden eyes, the deep black beneath them underscored in a vermillion flush, possessed by the heat of Zoro's body. And he understood. Sanji understood. There may not have been the typical bubbles of hearts decorating the air, but the droplets of sweat dripping down and against the ones tattooed on his chest and shoulders were more than enough. Zoro wrothe between them like a personified wet dream, shifts of hard, scarred-up muscle slipping as they flexed his untamed movement, the sound of his muffled growls and shuddering moans were anyone's undoing - placed in what looked from outward appearance as a passive role, but there was aggression in the way he subtly commanded pleasure and Law was nearly helpless but to answer. Helpless but to _give_. Helpless but to fold underneath it all after who-knew-how-long of trying to hold himself back. Stopping then with some level of restraint to pull out of Zoro's body and abruptly gather himself to his feet, leaving the younger swordsman to drop back onto his heels.

Sanji watched on, frozen in place as the warlord came to stand beside him, sharp hipbone bumping against sharper hipbone, his hand around his cock and jerking it smoothly, quickly as he allowed it to press near Sanji's own and nuzzled it against Zoro's cheek and the side of his puffy, red lips. The other man acquiesced and pulled off of Sanji with a sharp gasp, lips parting as Law nearly swore, but only managed to get so far as hissing the 'F' sound of what would have been a very apt, vehement explicative. His free hand gripped into Zoro's hair, eclipsing the cook's with jagged, broken pants for air rising up into a last heady groan. With his chin jutting upwards - eyes closed, neck exposed - teeth clenched. Muscles quivering tense, he began to come in hot, thick spurts over Zoro's open mouth and his cheek and his jaw, streaming and streaking down from his scarred and forever-shut eyelid. Degrading. Shaming. And it made Zoro _moan_ \- not degraded, nor ashamed.

A quiet mutter of reckless, wanton adoration came in the form of Law's name. The man who somehow knew exactly what Zoro liked, more than he knew himself.

( _Yes_ \- said man's body language). This much was obvious. Palpable, even.

That humiliation made Zoro want Law so much more that it _hurt_ to remain unfulfilled.

The swordsman's tongue flickered at the corners of his lips and lapped up the other man's semen, white fluid rolling against the soft of his mouth as Law idly thumbed at his face, smearing and gathered it to his lips. Sanji gazed between them, heat riding through his shaking thighs, committing to memory the way that tattooed fingers cupped the underside of Zoro's jaw almost tenderly before he knelt down to kiss briefly, gently, and chastely at his messy lips. He sat back then, panting as he concentrated on relearning how to steady his inhalations as his chest heaved his ins and outs of breath.

"You lose," was all the swordsman had to say, turning again to nudge against the tip of Sanji's dick, tongue flickering, "I thought you never would; I know you probably cheat, you bastard."

 _Of fucking course_ , Sanji thought, whoever could hold off their orgasm the longest so _would_ be a contest with Zoro.

A huff of soft laughter came in reply as the shichibukai let himself recede to the floor, resting the back of his skull onto the hard surface as a boneless, carelessly wrecked heap of an otherwise so tranquil and well put together man. "Tell me then, did I even come close?"

"Kinda. Would you believe that this shitty cook is actually really distracting?" Zoro replied almost silkily, with that mess still dripping down his cheek and chin. And then his mouth was back on Sanji for a final time, slowly sliding down until his dick was fully down his throat, cradling him into his tongue on the way back up with a last hot curl just on the underside of the head with slow flourish. And somehow, despite his lack of knowing, despite his lack of experience, with his pulse thrumming on a high and his breath coming short, the look that Zoro gave him as his single open eye listed up at him - and in that subtle nuance in the language of his body - had him gripping at his clothes and tossing them away from him, fumbling with buttons as his bottom half was stripped down with the swordsman's methodic urgency. That translation of a silent, 'It's all on you now, if you think you can handle it.'

He could. And he would.

As he peeled off every last layer, Zoro rose up to his feet, moved in so close that his semi-soft and untouched cock pressed into Sanji's erection as he trembled out heated breath into his ear. A strained voice, nearly begging. "Come on, cook."

Do it.

Do it.

 _Do it_.

And then lowered himself to the floor, dragging Sanji down with him before positioning himself onto his hands and knees, spreading his legs apart to invite him inside, tossing a look over his shoulder that was so disgustingly, deliciously Zoro-like and yet needy when in this context that it shook the blond straight through his middle. The same dark, dark, deep dark look worn when on the precipice of bringing a common enemy to his knees, an appetite for blood, a need to cum until he was wrung out completely dry. From this vantage, Sanji could see everything and his heart pounded in his ears - the subtle quiver of his thighs, the underside of his sack drawn up tight to his body as though close to bursting, just below the clenching little red pucker of his ass, flexing and unflexing, slick still with lube and pre-cum and stretched from overuse but still left wanting.

As Sanji's heart pounded in his ears like a kettle drum and his vision blurred, he was far beyond his usual pattern of thought, beyond his puerile and immature and childish eagerness, beyond any words, beyond any reason or any preliminaries as limbs shifted and knees pressed into hard floor. Nearly crashing into the swordsman, thighs against thighs and hips against ass as Sanji encircled his cock into his fist and began to sink himself slowly into a tight heat that electrified his every nerve like thousands of live wires all sparking every centimeter of his skin alive. Hot hot tight perfect, he couldn't speak or breathe or think and didn't really care to because it was Zoro - just _Zoro_ , and his inside felt _so good_. He groaned full-throated, shuddering shakes that shook him right back through as he pushed all the way in and was enveloped completely by his nakama's body.

And then went very still.

Because this was already his absolute limit.

With his hands curling fingernails into the wooden floor where they propped his weight, Sanji's head lifted as he panted for breath, shaking his hair from his eyes as he looked up towards Law almost helplessly, as if for guidance or instruction or something, anything, because this was too much. Too much, too much, his first time in so many senses and just _too much_ and on the brink of some mental/physical collapse, hopeless and struggling not to lose control so easily.

But the older man offered up nothing, watching them with only the most bland interest as he grabbed a jug of water from the side of the room and drank deeply in long, large gulps, throat working and bobbing as his gaze side-lined on Sanji from its peripheral. Vague. Dismissively turning away as he lifted the bottle up and doused himself, water pouring and sluicing in rivulets down the lines of that gorgeous, lithely muscled body and saturated through dripping midnight blue hair that flattened to his head and across his brow. A towel from the many piled in the locker mopped up his body and was thrown over his shoulders before he settled himself down on the bench. Looking away, dismissive, disinterested...

Cold.

And that was fine. If that's how Law wanted to act, it wasn't any of Sanji's business nor was it going to be his problem; Zoro was well aware that this would happen, and at that moment, was not aware of much of anything aside from Sanji's lack of movement.

"Damn it... do something... _move_ ," he growled out somewhere between begging and demanding, body rocking forward on his knees and rigidly slamming himself back onto Sanji's cock. Groaning out in ecstasy as the swordsman's pliant form took him deep and constricted around him, hot, tight, _too_ fucking _much_ , that single motion was all that Sanji could take. His will faltered and he buried himself inside viciously before he let himself go, fucking hard into that perfect ass in a few wet thrusts until he collapsed onto himself, all the way down-

down  
down  
down, pulled by gravity, yet outside the range of its compass as he gasped, panted, and in one large, rasping inhalation, an obliterating pleasure had him grinding himself into Zoro's hips as he came deeply inside of him. Pulsing, and shuddering, and hot...

And for moments, he let himself float, high up above the room, above the ship, above the mast and the flutter of the jolly roger that brought deeper meaning to his life. He had one-hundred epiphanies and clever revelations in the space of twenty seconds that he'd never remember, and maybe lived a few lifetimes along with them as he drifted on clouds and star-tops in a semi-illuminated state of bliss.

Until Zoro, true to his character, ruined the moment for him:

"The fuck was that? You're completely undisciplined, aho-cook."

From beneath him, Zoro was groaning, but he could have called it whining - his needs still unmet and going half out of his mind as Sanji lifted himself up by the last vestiges of his strength. He stared perversely as his cock slid out of his puckered hole, flushed and stretched with use, as his cum began to immediately leak out in wet drip.

"That's not helpful, Zoro-ya," Law said as toweled his face and stood up, allowing his long, graceful step to carry him to Sanji's side. "Although inexperience can play a role, anxiety is a much larger cause of premature ejaculation."

Face going hot, Sanji clenched his teeth together and his jaw flexed uselessly, molars grinding.

"I fucking hate you both," was all he could say in his defense, still breathless as he moved to the bench, reversing positions with Law entirely to let the man work his magic over his lover where he had failed. Though he wanted nothing more than to shut his eyes and dream away in his post-coital haze, he held them open in bleary interest as the shichibukai fluidly knelt behind Zoro's body and guided him into repositioning over the towel still spread over the floor as the one around his neck was shrugged off and away.

Clearly, this was going to get a little bit messy.

"Despite all elevated anecdotes to the contrary, sex is seldom perfect, and your plight is too common," Law replied, infinitely more composed and assured than before as a 'death'-scrawled hand slid through the sweat that pooled in the slope of the swordsman's lower back, palming slowly, benevolently up the bumps of his spine then pressed down once reaching in between his shoulder blades. As Zoro's body was forced into an arch, his head lowered into his overlapping forearms, ass put up on display where Law's other hand slipped between to explore that less-shallow area. Two fingers caught the white dribble of Sanji's cum, pressing what he could all back into that tight clench of muscles almost artlessly, obscenely, and Zoro cried out as his single eye fluttered and rolled back on its axis, exposing almost pure white with a marginal hint of black in its glossy slit before shutting completely - his gaze as obsolete as his slack expression.

In a tone that portrayed a man who gave very few fucks, if any, unperturbed and all evens and flats, Law continued to speak, "Especially with an insensitive partner who doesn't help you relax. Understand that everyone has unique biology and discovering the secrets of their body is like unlocking the most extraordinary, intimate puzzle. If, that is-" Law paused, lips quirking ever-so-slightly, pleased as his fingers shifted, not moving in and out, but in a subtle gesture, massaging, and drawing out salient breath after breath from the swordsman as he was worked into a quivering, beautiful, gasping mess beneath the warlord's pale, yellow stare. "-They feel secure enough to allow it. Without that, sex is only a means to a quick, mechanical ejaculation. Entirely meaningless."

And oh, how mighty and tall a man could feel from upon his own soapbox - but Sanji knew what Law was trying to do, and it was almost laughable how much he revealed, how much implication went forth in that simple, innocuous statement.

By that logic, there was but one conclusion: what Law had with Zoro was not without meaning.

(And in the same subtext, anything deeper between Sanji and his crewmate, was made invalid).

He'd meant to reply, some clever, just-as-subtle retort dropped in a very knowing way with an equally knowing look leveled at the shichibukai, but only managed the latter of these things. The rest of his thought pattern was cut short as the swordsman gasped into his hands, eloquent as always, " _Shut. up. Torao_." before burying his face down into them completely and muffled a swear when Law laughed hotly in reply. Showing only a fiercely knitted brow above the clench of his fists, so strained that his veins stood out on their backs in stark relief. The kind of overwhelming, intense pleasure raking through his prone form that teetered on the fence of pain while Law almost lazily mapped out his skin-

Not exploring, not really; he already knew all there was to know,  
merely relishing as he traced the shape of muscles all slick with sweat,

quietly reverent, reasserting his dominant position,  
circling a possessive arm about his ribcage  
and splayed his hand over his stomach,  
stealing away Zoro's control wrapped in that illusion of non-control.

-Intent to make him lose it completely. All while alternating the amount of pressure used to fuck the younger man with his two fingers, sliding out and then disappearing back in, massaging him incessantly and drawing out strong twitches from his cock, hanging heavy, untouched, still soft yet dripping pre-cum between his legs. As Law's fingers struck _just so_ , Zoro's mouth clamped onto his white knuckles, his whole body jerking and twisting in a way that looked like he was about to unhinge his spine from his pelvic region, and that drip became a hot, wet, flow like an orgasm by a quarter that puddled on the towel below. Not even fully erect, not spurting with any power behind it, not even at his peak yet - the shichibukai had Zoro _streaming_ cum by the skill of mere fingers rubbing inside of his ass.

"Oh, God, you have got to be fucking kidding me," Sanji nearly moaned as he straightened, watching this take place with widening eyes, "What are you even doing to him?"

Without skipping a beat, without allowing himself to be distracted, Law's expression opened up with a large, cheshire smile - all salacitous and prideful in its audacity. "Other than making him completely fall to pieces, you mean?" His hand slid lower over the swordsman's stomach, curling around his dick and giving it a long, slow stroke. Even Sanji couldn't help but bite down on his lower lip, watching the mess beneath Zoro increase as his cock was brought to a full, thick, arousal, and listening to the cries and incoherent pleas that he muffled into his arms. "What I am actually doing is directly milking his prostate... although, I am debating if I shouldn't take this to the next level." Law's eyes gleamed golden in the dim light, almost malevolent with intent as he leaned down, whispering in a lowlow low, heated murmur against the other man's ear- "What do you think, _Zoro-ya_?"

\- droplets of water still falling from his dark, wet hair splashed over Zoro's hot skin, making it crawl and shiver in the contrasting cool as he simply moaned in reply, managing to loosen one of his hands and reach behind him, pawing at Law's arm until the other man took the hint. Releasing his cock, the pirate captain took him by the hand, eclipsing it with his own by the slightest margin as their fingers interlaced tightly together like something meant to tether Zoro down to reality else he completely lose it. It was necessity and affection and permission all balled up together. A simple and profound connection.

And it was all that Sanji wanted; no more than what Law, in that moment, needed.

Sliding his fingers free from Zoro's body, Law wrapped them around his own dick, giving it a few quick tugs to bring himself back to a full, thick arousal, slick with Sanji's cum. He shifted on his knees to align himself with the younger swordsman's hole to plunge himself back inside the rings of muscle, fluid and deep. And with no further preliminaries, began to really give it to him, filling him repeatedly, thrusting hard and fast in snap movements of his hips that squelched all evidence of the cook's presence out of him. Seeing it wet Law's gorgeous cock as it slid in and out, drip thickly down the older man's balls, made Sanji's stomach feel tight, his body regaining all of it's lost heat as he readjusted his vantage to see as much as he possibly could.

"Lover..." Law's voice was quiet, nearly a non-existent exhale of breath as the affectionate label slipped out. "... I want you to come. It hurts now, doesn't it? Let it go..."

"I can't... every time, I get so close and then... I can't..." Zoro's words lapsed into a hot, desperate little moan, clenching his fingers tight where they were still held and overlapped by the other man. "Just.. touch me." As he pulled them up together to grasp once again around his cock, Sanji did the same to himself - without thinking about it, without even noticing that he'd mirrored the gesture until his whole body seemed to sigh at him in longing, need, and want, hips rocking up mindlessly to his fist to the same rough pace that Law established between himself and the younger swordsman.

"Relax." Law drew his hand back momentarily and licked his palm, sucked his thumb into his mouth to drench it with saliva before wrapping it again, wet and glistening, around Zoro's dick. "The same anxiety that Kuroashi-ya experienced can sometimes have a completely opposite effect. Whatever you're thinking, let it not matter anymore," he continued, leaning in to mouth at nape of Zoro's neck as he moved, keeping rhythm, skewering Zoro's body repeatedly with every bend of his hips. "Think of my cock inside of you... how tight you still are around me no matter what I do to you; how good you feel, every time... Think of me coming all over you, coating your skin, seeping into your pores, making you dirty, making you all-"

 _Mine_...

Was what Sanji knew he was going to say.

.. Mine, yet stopped himself into a heated groan that he pressed into a kiss at the top of the swordsman's vertebrae and slid back. Fucked him harder, deeper if at all possible - he wondered if there was a limit to this, somewhere in the back of his mind, until one or the both of them would finally break. And which would go first, between Zoro's body or Law's heart in a process that Sanji was only just beginning to understand. The way he writhed as he was impaled repeatedly on the warlord's fat cock, clenching his expression as he stumbled and stuttered out words and moans, loud and wet, the strength of the man gone into such a gorgeous mess that even Sanji couldn't help but _whimper_ as he watched and watched and _watched_ , wetting his fingers at the head of his own straining erection as he worked it quickly between them.

And with that, immediately, Zoro's gaze shifted up at him from where he'd buried his face into his arm, one eye burning with heat as Sanji furiously continued to work himself between the motion of his hand and his hips raising to meet his own touch. He knew that Zoro liked what he saw; he knew he wanted to see more. He also knew that Law wouldn't like this, but he also didn't care - his knees parted on the bench and let Zoro see everything. _All of him_. From the way his other hand slid down the stark, muscled lines of his own body like some form of self-seduction to the way his anus would clench up, balls tightening to his body, whenever the pleasure stabbed through him, white-hot, when he bumped his fingers over his more sensitive points.

 _Come on, Zoro_ , he mouthed, mimicking the man's earlier command.

"I can't-" the man whimpered before his single eye fell into a twisted expression, brows folding with his teeth bared and clenched, and behind him, Law made a strangled noise as Zoro's whole body spasm'd and his dick began to spurt between their joined fingers, thick and white and viscous, streaking an even larger mess over the towel beneath him. The sounds Zoro made were almost inhuman, harsh and desperate cries choked off like his vocal chords had shorted with his breath stuck in the back of his throat. But what the swordsman could no longer voice, his aura howled and howled - hit Sanji like a fucking shockwave and brought him off for a second time. Hard, hot, feeling Zoro's orgasm as much as his own, indistinct and erratic as every last drop of cum was worked and coaxed from his trembling body and rubbed back onto his flushed dick while Sanji's own splattered his stomach and hips. They fell practically in tandem, the blond somewhat more composed than the swordsman whose spine bowed and contorted, muscles continuously bulging and chest heaving in the process of falling apart under the capability of a man who wasn't going to let himself care enough tomorrow to pick up all of his pieces.

Withdrawing himself, Law's arms immediately caught Zoro's weight before it had the chance to give out, and with all of his calm, relaxed gestures, he dictated that quaking, half-broken, sweat-bathed body beneath him to roll off to the side and onto his back. He looked like he was half in pain, shaking apart on the barbs of aftershocks, which, Sanji thought as he breathed out across his own last twitches, was his own stupid fault, but he couldn't help but worry if that hadn't been going a little too far.

He wanted to do something. Touch him. Hold him. Whisper pillow talk as lovers do in the aftermath of… whatever there was to make of this. Trace the shape of his mouth as it drew in beautiful and deep laboured breaths. Fondly brush the sweaty strands of green hair back from his forehead. Slouch down between his parted knees and let his sides be caressed by them while he pressed his lips to his neck.

He wanted to explore the full of all of his secret sides, feel the thick of all of his soft and undiscovered parts with his hands and heart and be, for that moment, what Law should have been but was stupidly refusing as simply stared down at Zoro wordlessly as sweat dripped down his skin, expression unscrupulous and vague.

"Zoro," Sanji said, quietly.

That simple name, that simple little noun being spoken aloud, moved the older swordsman more than it did the younger. Zoro breathed in and out and nodded dumbly in reply as if responding to a question and couldn't really care. The lights were all off upstairs and no one was home, no one was there, its sole occupant was off chasing his ecstasy down to its last drop on some bleary, blissed out sub-reality while Law lifted his malleable thighs apart and thrust his cock back inside of him. He crushed himself down over Zoro, who took the full of his weight and clutched at it with heels locking at the small of his back like it was entirely necessary for him to grind back on the hips slamming inside deep with the sound of skin smacking down against skin. Fingertips indented themselves into the heart-shapes inked into Law's biceps as he moaned - fucking _moaned_ louder and louder, over-sensitive everywhere as the soft, wet head of his dick rubbed against Law's tightened abs.

"Fu..." _ck..._ "Fuck. Nnngh..." Whatever he was attempting to say, some stammered plea that he couldn't quite manage, was swallowed up, stolen off his breath as Law dived in hungrily and covered his mouth, kissed him messily and without coordination as he inhaled heavily through his nose, and pulled back enough to exhale again across a heavy, glistening tangle of tongues. "So... so- you..."

"Almost..." Law hissed back as his hands reached up to tangle into Zoro's hair and hold him in place as his hips thrust in repeatedly, eliciting gasp after gasp from his open mouth over that kiss that was far too passionate to be something as simple as a _kiss_. Sloppy, but meaningful and somehow important, poignant, up until the moment where Law could no longer maintain it as his lips slid off-course and his head dipped into the curve between the younger man's throat, wedged with his own arm still raised to clench his fingers tight into green strands, digging deep into his scalp.

"I-" _am going to cum_. "Zoro-ya… Hnn-" The man's muscles tightened up as his spine went into an impossible arch as he reached a gasping, gut-wrenching climax for a second time that he pushed deep into Zoro's ass with a grind of his hips. Going rigid and still. Throbbing, palpitating, pulsing deep inside inside that prone, wide open body, just as Sanji could almost make out the sound of his heartbeat in the sudden quiet of the room before Law finally remembered to breathe out.

And when he did, the sound of it was beautiful. Serene and satisfied. Tranquil, almost.

Leaning down, something was said into Zoro's ear so low that Sanji couldn't catch it, but he could see the formation of distinct syllables whisper over the shichibukai's lips before he slid his cock free with a slick, vulgar sound and placed his hands on parted thighs. Spread them further apart, splaying the swordsman's body in a perverse gape before the warlord dropped himself down in-between. With his view partially blocked from that vantage by a muscular leg, Sanji couldn't see what was happening, but he had a fairly good idea as Law's head moved, kissing his way over Zoro's sensitive spots, nipping, caressing here and there, pausing to lick the sweat from the bend beneath his kneecap where his flesh was probably more tender than other places, down towards his inner thigh, and continued to the cheeks of his ass. Zoro released a breathy sigh as the older man shifted his hands down further to push them as far apart as possible before tonguing and lapping down between, laving at his thoroughly used and stretched hole, dipping as far in as possible.

Repeatedly, Zoro's body jerked, stomach quivering, hypersensitive as Law licked at the pucker of his ass, using a tip of a finger to pull at his rim as he sucked and _ate out_ everything that had been ejaculated inside of him between himself and whatever was left behind from Sanji taking his own turn, holding it in his mouth without swallowing before he rose back up on the heels of his palms. A single eye opened up and trained on Law, bleary and glazed as a hand drifted errantly to his sweat-sheened brow, affectionately shoving clumped locks of blue hair still wet with water back up to his hairline. And a small, rakish, and undeniably satiated smile pulled at the corner of his mouth before it opened up expectantly for the thick drizzle of cum that was fed back to him in the most obscene kiss Sanji had ever witnessed in his life.

As they parted and Zoro swallowed down thickly, Law gazed down at him for a raw, appreciative moment, and then towards Sanji almost perfunctorily. The look he gave back was challenging, in a way - he couldn't help it, no matter how un-heartfelt it was - as he took to cleaning the mess from his stomach and hips with a fresh towel. It looked like there was something on the older man's mind, his eyes showing a faint trace of exhaustion beyond the characteristic dark under-eye circles, but something... was turning... sliding, clicking, deciding...

Why ( _did watching Sanji touch himself bring Zoro off so hard_ )?

...And then was _disregarding_ it entirely, whatever it was, though Sanji knew. He fucking _knew_. Not because he could sense it - Law's mind was always so quiet, free of distress and his presence alone was so indistinct and difficult to detect - not because Law gave much of anything away in his neutral, unperturbed expression. But because of what he had already let slip in a moment where he couldn't help himself, naked in more than one sense and exposed and vulnerable, just for that split of a second when his teeth had sank into Zoro's skin, time enough to show...

Emotions, deeply invested. Tangles and tangles washing up like kelp turning over to dry out on the shore of a low tide. Eventually, the water would wash it all back, but...

But.

But it was not Sanji's place to say anything. He'd done his part. Still, however he had been feeling throughout the day (which had been a complete disaster, no mistaken), and however much he really liked Law; that stupid _crush_ , aptly termed; he knew how premature and juvenile and stupid it all really was. Even without the large comparison standing in front of him, gathering his clothing among those scattered all over the training room floor.

"I hope that was educational enough," Law said, voice characteristically neutral as he pulled his jeans over his long legs, sparing a glance at Zoro who was laying boneless as he decompressed, looking gorgeously, contentedly, thoroughly sexed over. Yet, there was a tension hanging just at the edge of where his fingers curled, half-hidden behind where his head was propped in his arms, and it didn't sit well with the cook. Something was... off. Just _off_. "Tomorrow may be somewhat trying, if not stressful, even if all goes according to plan. I need to get at least a few hours of sleep - I advise that you both try to do the same."

As soon as his shoes were on his feet and his hat pulled low over his eyes, the shichibukai was gone down the ladder with his coat draped over his arm without another word nor look back at them. Across the room, Zoro deeply sighed, resigned, while Sanji cracked the window open to let in some breathable air before sliding down from the bench and to the other man's side. He could have comforted him, but it seemed excessive and unnecessary. If there were anything at all he had taken away from that day, it was that Zoro was more than capable of taking actions and facing their consequences. Instead, he reached for his coat and fumbled for his cigarette pack, took one out, and lit it with a deep inhale, savoring the first burning hit to the back of his throat as it gave nourishment to his nicotine-deprived bloodstream and pushed back any and all anxiety that tried to gain foothold on the moment.

"Well. That plan failed; he didn't really seem jealous, just annoyed," Zoro said, watching curls of smoke waft above his head as though they were something fascinating, their shapes moving about the room and towards the ceiling like animals and land masses roaming across a cloudy blue sky. "Not that it matters. The end result is still the same. But at least you got something out of it."

Sanji stayed quiet for a moment, taking a long, slow, deliberate drag from his cigarette before responding. "I suppose. Law _does_ look damn good naked... but you're not so bad, either. I didn't know you had all that in you, Marimo." At that, the swordsman made an amused tell-me-something-i-don't-know type of grunting sound, the corners of his kiss-swollen, bitten lips quirking. A 'thanks' might have been too much to ask from Zoro, but then, also so far outside of their usual discourse, it would have been a tad unnerving.

"Still..." Sanji continued, carelessly flicking his ashes to the floor, "I think your plan actually worked, it just... backfired. He likes you. A lot. More than he's letting on. He's over the honeymoon phase while you're still in it, which makes no sense... unless I'm somehow wildly mistaken, the first time you met _was_ only a few days ago, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, on Punk Hazard... there was that time in the Sabaody auction house, but I only saw him for a second; we were kind of busy then. And what's this honeymoon shit? It's just sex, we're not married, idiot cook."

Sanji's eye twitched. "It's not a literal thing, dumbass, it's... biological. Pair bonding, euphoric brain chemical cocktails and... well, nevermind, it's not important. I just meant that he acts like he knows everything about you already - like you said, he knows what you like, better than you do. But you can't say the same, can you?"

"No. But I'm enjoying it." Zoro's expression went slightly dark. "Or, I _was_ enjoying it, anyway."

But it didn't add up. Perhaps the numbers were all correct, but a certain variable in this calculation had been misplaced with something else - mistaken for something else. When Sanji really thought on it... Punk Hazard... they'd all been too busy to really communicate, all set out on separate tasks and he mostly had tabs on Zoro, always somehow ending up in the right place at the right time by being completely lost, as usual. He'd been lost on Sabaody, too, until Luffy managed to find him, and then came bursting through the ceiling to their friend's rescue at that horrible human auction house. The chaos, back then, that ensued after their captain had punched the tenryuubito in his hideous face, all of the fighting that took place; Robin, Usopp, and Brook falling in from above to join the foray.

 _The marines are already here, Mugiwara-ya_... was what the man reclining with his elbows on the back of his seat had said, looking outwards from the farther rows as a spectator upon the massive upheaval that'd taken place on that day with the most obnoxiously amused, yet critically cutting - cunning - of all expressions.

 _You're Trafalgar Law_. Robin had recognized him by face, the pirate that simply sat there with his own crewmates, observing... watching...

(One of the eleven supernovas... like Luffy, like Eustass Kid, Zoro, too, had been among their number... and reknowned for having a bounty so high without being a captain in this own right).

And what was it that Law truly saw when he surveyed that room long ago, watching the Straw Hats in the midst of battle? As he thought on the answer to that question, everything began to make a sudden amount more sense as Sanji worked his way down his cigarette, his other hand idly shifting across Zoro's bare stomach without even noticing that he'd settled it there.

Law and Zoro. Two days.

Law and Zoro. _Two years._

"... Oh, shit. I'm going to go talk to him. You should get cleaned up."

"Don't you fucking even," Zoro said, scooting himself from the floor and into a sitting position with the slightest wince as his body weight shifted fully onto his ass, "Even if it were your problem - which it isn't - I'm pretty sure anything you have to say is only going to make things worse. And likely awkward as hell. No meddling, cook."

Standing fully, Sanji began to gather his clothes, letting the remnants of his cigarette dangle between his lips. "I'm only ever going to say this once, Zoro... so listen good." Pants tugged up and belt refastened, he slid his arms into his shirt and began to work on the buttons. "I never had a chance with Law. Even before you got to him - even if by some bizarre fate, he'd stumbled upon the hell I spent two years suffering, I still wouldn't have had a chance. When he looked at me tonight, the only thing he saw was competition... and maybe a damned good cook. But mostly competition. If you haven't noticed, the only time he ever touched me the whole night was only because my dick happened to be between your mouth and his." He began to work on his socks and shoes. "So there's that. Nothing I can do about it. But... you, on the other hand... if I'm right... if at least one of us can be happy, I'm glad that it's you. All bullshit aside, you do deserve it, probably more than anyone… aside from the ladies. Which I will also eventually fulfill."

"The hell are you-"

"Don't ask, just let me do my thing." Sanji interrupted as he pulled at his shirt cuffs, straightening them _just so_ to make the hems fall into perfect symmetry. "I'll put on some fresh coffee before I tuck in for the night. And for fuck's sake, clean up, already - you have dried cum all over your face."

"Maybe I'm saving it for later. A late snack," Zoro replied, tossing a sickeningly impish smile at Sanji's rather disgusted glare, shaking his head tiredly before he hid his face into his palm and raked his fingers up into his hair. Feeling, for a moment, not too young, but too damn _old_ to deal with this kind of shit - or maybe even going a tad senile if he'd forgotten for a second that Zoro, given an opening, would find a way to completely ruin the hottest memory of his life that he'd planned on using to fodder several weeks worth of masturbation material, just by being... himself. Gross. Uncouth. Shitty. Ill-mannered. _Marimo_.

Finding a clean towel in the massive pile, he threw it at Zoro's face and effectively covered his stupid, smug look as he gave a satisfying, smothered noise of complaint.

"Feel free to go die at any time, you sick fuck. I'm going to go get your boyfriend back," he snapped. And saving himself a very inevitable and guessable reply, he dropped down to the ladder and to the deck, only bothering with a couple of rungs before he was on his feet like a cat, lighting a fresh cigarette with the old before tossing its remnants overboard.

As he suspected, Law was lounging by the foremast, one arm wrapped around his nodachi, head bowed low and eyes shadowed by the brim of his hat. He looked peaceful, tranquil and pacific... but not yet fully asleep, as told by the tension in his posture and the movements of his chest, not quite breathing deep enough to be truly under the weight of unconsciousness or off on some little Law-dream. Whatever it was that the warlord dreamed of... but judging by his typical sleep-expressions, was probably something very nice - probably vivisecting their captain or holding him underwater - or both - or fucking their first mate into senseless bliss... or… something else along those depraved lines.

For a few sparse minutes, he simply watched the other man, who couldn't not know that Sanji was there, but said nothing, nor did he acknowledge him in any way. But this was him being generous, giving the other man a moment of space before he said his piece, a moment of pure silence... because what he had to say, he knew that Law was really, _really_ not going to like. But for what he had put Sanji through earlier in the galley, it was going to be a pretty good trade-off. Pay back, in a way, even if he was going to be approaching this with far more altruistic intent.

That didn't mean that he had to be kind about it.

"Oi, Law," he began as he made his way towards the railing, watching the way the moon's reflection wavered and bobbed atop the water, seeming deceptively so much closer, as if he could cast out a fishing net and reel the celestial object in and cup it in his palms. "There's something I still need to ask you. About Zoro."

It had to be well past two in the morning. It was always so quiet at this hour, all of the cognizant world settled into sleep, even the fishes below them tucked down into the beds of the sea, all darkened and restful. It had to be a trick of the cool, calm waters that his voice come out more even-tempered in the breezeless air than he actually felt, and the stillness and hush made Law shifting behind him seem like a more grandiose gesture than it really was.

Maybe. If he actually took the time to read into it, but it would have been a pointless, redundant observation to make if there were some larger meaning to it, either way. Because he already knew, whatever it was that Law was hiding (and there _was_ something, and Sanji was only beginning to scratch at the surface of what exactly it meant)...

\- Went down deep. Perhaps even moreso than all of his mermaids.


End file.
